“I’m not doing very well at all at the moment. Who are you?”
“Jeremiah’s friend.”
Jeremiah grimaced. “That’s stretching it right now, Croc.”
Croc laughed. “He’s ready to string me up because I followed you two out here.” He cuffed Jeremiah on the shoulder. “But you spotted me, man. You’re not bad at this cloak and dagger shit.”
“Wait just a minute,” Mollie said. “Jeremiah, would you mind explaining to me what in hell’s going on here?”
“On our way back to your place-”
“Uh-uh. Now.”
He sighed, his patience obviously stretched beyond its meager limits. “I noticed Croc in a car behind us on our way over. I didn’t mention it because I wasn’t positive who it was, and because Croc’s not the easiest person to explain.”
“He’s your informant.” Mollie suddenly felt a chill. “He’s the one who discovered I was a common denominator.”
“The common denominator,” Croc corrected proudly.
Jeremiah shot him a look that would have silenced half of south Florida. His expression softened when he shifted back to Mollie. “I’m sorry if he scared you. He’s having trouble sorting out what’s his business and what’s not.”
“Boundary problems,” Croc said. “They go way back with me. Tabak’s been working on getting me on the straight and narrow.”
“I’ve known Croc about two years,” he said.
Mollie took in his words, trying to remain as cool as he was, as calmly professional. “And you couldn’t have told me about him.”
“Under the circumstances, no.”
“Until I meet him on a dark road in the middle of the night. Then you can tell me.”
Croc frowned. “It’s what, ten o’clock? That’s not the middle of the night.”
Mollie directed herself to him. “I could have run you over.”
“Not me. I’ve got quick reflexes.” He patted her rooftop. “Even a Jag I could dodge.”
“Croc,” Jeremiah said darkly, “if you don’t want Mollie to back up and try again, I’d shut the hell up.”
“Right,” Croc said.
Mollie felt like rolling her window up on both of them. “If anyone turns out to be missing so much as a dime-store ring tonight, I’ll have the police pay you two a visit. Consider yourselves lucky I don’t call them right now.” She gave them a fake smile. “Good night.”
And that was that. Croc started to argue, but Jeremiah grabbed him by the shirt, yanked him out of the way, and let Mollie pass. She did a neat three-point turn and continued on to the main road and out to Leonardo’s house, trying not to think about anything except the traffic, her speed, the turns she needed to make. Jeremiah had known this Croc had followed them to dinner. He hadn’t said anything. He’d been out there for the past three hours doing God only knew what, and she’d known it and had let it happen, had even made it happen. This wasn’t her property, these weren’t even her friends, not yet. They were Leonardo’s friends, and she had used them badly.
There were no two-way streets where Jeremiah Tabak was concerned.
It was something she desperately needed to remember.
“Guess you lost your ride home,” Croc said after Mollie had abandoned them.
Jeremiah gritted his teeth. It was pitch-dark, cool, raining again. “Croc, why I don’t hang you from this banyan, I don’t know.”
“What’d I do?”
“I have half a mind to drag your ass down to the police station.”
“What for?”
“Personal satisfaction.”
“Hey, I’m not your thief. For all we know, your tootsie there waltzed off with a trunkload of jewels.”
Jeremiah stopped in his tracks. He glared at Croc in the dark. With the clouds and the rain, it was not a pleasant night to be out. Croc’s shape was visible, just not any of his features. Which was just as well. The wrong look, the wrong glint in his eye, and Jeremiah didn’t know what he’d do. “Mollie is not your thief. Will you get that out of your head?”
“Okay. She’s not the thief.”
There was no conviction in his tone. Jeremiah sighed. “What’s your interest in this thing, Croc? Just explain that to me.”
“Keeps me off the streets.”
“I hadn’t noticed.”
What Jeremiah calculated was the last of the guests drove past, making it relatively safe for him and Croc to walk out on the driveway instead of in the wet brush. He didn’t mind, but Croc kept expecting alligators and snakes. “I’m probably full of spiders,” he grumbled when they hit smooth pavement.
“Good,” Jeremiah said.
“You’re a heartless bastard, you know?”
“I haven’t strangled you yet.”
“Yeah, yeah, so I should be grateful. You want a ride home?”
“My truck’s at Mollie’s. It’s not that far. I can walk.”
“What, and give her time to have your truck towed? That’ll cost you a mint. You know, she’s pissed because you didn’t tell her she was being followed.”
“If you will recall, I didn’t know for sure it was you.”
“Yep,” Croc said, “I recall.”
After he’d slipped from Mollie’s car, Jeremiah had hidden in the brush and waited for whoever had followed her to make an appearance. It was Croc’s good fortune that Jeremiah had recognized him before he’d decked him. As it was, he’d scared the daylights out of one twenty-something informant.
“My car’s down the road about a quarter-mile,” Croc said.
Jeremiah relented. “All right. You can drive me back to Mollie’s. But I suggest you crawl back into whatever hole you crawled out of and leave her the hell alone. Understood?”
“Aye-aye, mon capitaine.”
Jeremiah charged down the driveway, Croc on his heels, unruffled. That they’d managed to avoid being spotted by any of tonight’s dinner guests suggested Croc had deliberately let Mollie see him. He’d wanted to find out what she would do, and he’d wanted to meet her.
“Think about it, Tabak.” Croc was having to move fast to keep up. “If you were an innocent dinner guest and came upon a strange man in the dark, would you have rolled down your window and chatted with him? I mean, it would have made more sense if she’d tried to run me over or drove back up to the house and called the police.”
“Croc, for God’s sake. She saw me half a second after she saw you.”
“I don’t know.” They came to the end of the driveway and turned up the road. Streetlights and passing cars provided some illumination. “I think she knows I wasn’t the jewel thief. Which means she must know who it really is.”
“That’s a huge leap in logic.”
“So? Logic’s your department.” He grinned over at Jeremiah. “I consider myself a visionary.”
“Yeah, well, visionary me back to my truck.”
Croc’s car was a little red Volkswagen Rabbit that fit in Palm Beach even less well than Jeremiah’s truck. A truck was an essential piece of equipment. Gardeners could have beat-up trucks. Rich men who drove Lincolns and Mercedes during the day liked to rough it with a beat-up truck. But a rusted, ancient Rabbit with bald tires didn’t make the grade. Croc didn’t seem to care. “I’m telling you, this baby costs nothing to keep on the road.”
Jeremiah wondered who paid the insurance. And whose name it was in. He could run the license plate, but that seemed premature, a violation of the fragile trust he and Croc, aka Blake Wilder, had established. Not that the little bastard was holding up his end. He was damned lucky Jeremiah still didn’t throttle him for following Mollie.
When they arrived at Pascarelli’s, she was backing Jeremiah’s truck onto the street. It was bucking wildly. “I don’t think she’s so good with a clutch,” Croc said.
“That clutch is balky.”
Jeremiah winced at the squeal of tires and sudden silence as the engine choked. The truck was still crooked, its front tires well out into the street, but
Mollie apparently had had enough. The door opened, and she climbed out.
Croc gave a low whistle. “Guess that’s a hint, huh?”
“Go home, Croc.” Jeremiah pushed open the rusting passenger door and got out. “Call me tomorrow. We’ll talk.”
This time not arguing, Croc did a quick turnaround and sped off. Jeremiah approached his truck, and Mollie, with a certain prudent wariness. “I’m surprised you didn’t let the air out of my tires.”
She turned to him, dusting off her hands as if there’d been something nasty on his steering wheel, and tossed her head back, the streetlight catching the ends of her pale hair. She still had on her little black dinner dress. “That would only encourage you to stay longer.”
He moved closer. “Mad, huh?”
“Very.”
“You deserve to be.”
She narrowed her eyes on him. “Is that an apology?”
“Mollie, I wasn’t a hundred percent sure it was Croc. I wasn’t even a hundred percent sure we’d been followed. I didn’t want to ruin your evening if I was wrong. When I tracked him down on your friends’ grounds, I could hardly waltz up to the house and come clean to you.”
She didn’t soften. “Would you have told me if I hadn’t spotted him?”
Jeremiah moved even closer, aware of the cool evening air, the shape of her under her dress, of his own ragged muscles, his hair and clothes damp from the intermittent rain, the crazy trek through underbrush. “I don’t know. I hadn’t thought that far ahead.”
“I see. Well, fair enough. Here are your keys.” She dangled them from two fingers. Jeremiah held out his palm, and she dropped them in. “Good night.”
She started back toward her open gates, casting a long shadow on the elegant brick driveway.
Jeremiah stayed where he was. “What would you do if you were trapped in there with a pack of wild dogs and your gates didn’t work?”
She arched him a mystified look. “I’d just have to get out my tranquilizer gun and tranquilize them.”
“You don’t have a tranquilizer gun.”
“You don’t have a pack of wild dogs, and my gates work fine.”
He settled back on his heels, studying her.
She couldn’t stand the scrutiny for long. “What is it?”
“How come there’s no man in your life?”
She swiveled around at him, obviously taken aback by his question. “Should there be? A woman can’t be happy and fulfilled without a man in her life?” She thrust her hands on her hips. “Why isn’t there a woman in your life?”
“Who says there isn’t?”
“You don’t have a committed relationship, a partnership, with a woman, Jeremiah. It’s not in your nature.”
He frowned. “It’s not?”
“No. Your only committed relationship is with your work.”
“Which isn’t going too well right now. I’m spending most of my time chasing a story I can’t write.”
“Because it would be unethical,” she said, with just a hint of sarcasm.
Jeremiah grinned at her. “You’re not as hard as you think you are, Mollie. You know you’ve forgiven me for ten years ago.” He moved toward her, enough of a saunter in his gait to aggravate her. He was having fun all of a sudden. And so, he was confident, was she. “It’s just killing you to admit it.”
“You changed my life. All my plans, all my expectations-everything changed after our week together.”
“Maybe it needed changing.”
“That’s not the point.”
“What’s the point?” He caught up her fingers into his, drew her just a little closer. “That I hurt you?” She blinked rapidly, not answering, and he pressed her fingers to his mouth. “I never meant to hurt you, Mollie. If I could go back and unhurt you, I would.”
He could see her throat tighten, her lips part, a spark of desire in her eyes. When he curved an arm around her back and she said nothing, didn’t pull away, he knew she was going to let the kiss happen. His mouth on hers, the taste of her, the feel of her body pressed up against his. It was the stuff of his dreams for the past decade.
And yet when his mouth did find hers, he couldn’t pretend this was anything but real. Every fiber of him flared, set afire by the taste of her, the feel of her as she wrapped her arms around him, splaying both hands on his back as if to take in as much of him as she could. He heard her sharp intake of breath as their kiss deepened, restraint vanishing. He drew her fully against him, a moan of pleasure and need escaping as he fought for air, his senses running wild, soaking up everything, the chirping of the birds, the soughing of the breeze, the hum of distant traffic, the scent of grass and flowers, all of it a detailed backdrop to the play of his tongue against hers, the light, hot kisses he trailed along her jaw.
“Ah, Mollie.” He kissed her once more on the mouth, fiercely, before he pulled back, straightened. “A good thing for curious neighbors, wouldn’t you say?”
“I suppose.” She caught her breath, reeling. “I don’t think either of us can make a case for neutrality right now.”
“I expect not.”
“You’ll wait for me to lock the gates?”
He nodded. He wouldn’t be spending the night with her. Under the circumstances, a spine-melting kiss was as much as he could expect for tonight. “Night, Mollie.”
She smiled, the stiffness of anger and self-doubt gone, a genuine openness in their place. He liked her unguarded, relaxed, not trying to pretend she wasn’t still attracted to him. “Good night, Jeremiah.” The smile faded, just for an instant, and she said quietly, “And I have forgiven you. And myself.”
She was through the gates, and as they shut, Jeremiah wondered if a little part of her wasn’t telling herself that next time, she should hope for the pack of wild dogs instead of a man who’d already broken her heart once.
10
Mollie had spread over her kitchen table everything that had ever been said about Chet Farnsworth from his first interview on joining NASA to a review in the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel of his Sunday performance. She felt sane, professional, able to concentrate on her work. Last night’s lunacy was behind her.
But when her phone rang, she jumped and stared at it, heart racing, as if it were possessed by evil spirits. Yesterday’s threatening call still reverberated. Her job, however, required her to be on the phone. She couldn’t let one cretin deter her.
She took a breath, picked it up, and said her name.
“Can’t you screen your calls?” Jeremiah asked without preamble.
“Not if I expect to stay in business.” She thought she sounded remarkably steady given the rush of stress chemicals pouring through her bloodstream. “What’s up?”
“I’m calling to check in.”
“Where are you?”
He didn’t answer at once. “Worth Avenue. I’m parked in front of a fancy children’s clothing store. There’s a mannequin in the window of a girl in a frilly dress. She looks like Little Bo Peep.”
Mollie smiled. “I know the shop.” Worth Avenue was Palm Beach’s answer to Rodeo Drive. “Is your friend Croc with you?”
“Croc isn’t my friend, and I don’t know where he is. I never know, which is one of the hazards of my association with him. After last night, I’m afraid he’s become a loose cannon. But it wouldn’t be easy reining him in.”
“That must be unnerving for you.” Not to mention for her.
“Aggravating is more like it. Tell me about your day, Mollie. What do you have going?”
“I need to run an errand this morning-on Worth Avenue, as a matter of fact.”
“We could meet for coffee.”
She settled back in her chair at the kitchen table, calmer. “Don’t you have a real story you should be working on?”
“I’ve got a few leads I could chase down, but right now I’m still officially between stories. I can focus on you.” His voice was low, the twangy drawl not too obvious. “Don’t you feel lucky?”
&nbs
p; “Uh-huh. Sure. Since you waltzed back into my life, I’ve been attacked, threatened, suspected of being a thief, and driven to letting you and your mysterious friend Croc sneak around while I ate dinner.”
“You’ve also been kissed quite thoroughly.”
“Jeremiah, you are incorrigible.”
“So people keep telling me, although not because I find myself kissing just anyone in a parking garage.” He paused. “We should have gone upstairs last night.”
She inhaled sharply, a hot jolt of awareness coursing through her. “You’re in an awfully cheeky mood this morning.”
“Comes from lack of sleep. What’re you doing after Worth Avenue?”
He would not be distracted from the point of his call, which was to keep tabs on her. “I have a luncheon at the Paulette Mansion. A security expert is speaking to one of the local women’s societies-”
“George Marcotte. How fortuitous. I’ll be there myself.”
“You will?” She frowned. “Why?”
“Gut instinct. Plus I’ve lined up a quick interview with Marcotte. I want to hear his take on our cat burglar.”
“You just made that up.”
He laughed. “For a publicist, you have a suspicious mind.”
“That’s because I know you.”
“You’re getting there.” The sexy undertone was unmistakable. “Reconsider coffee.”
He started to hang up, but Mollie said, “I talked to Leonardo this morning. I asked him if he had any enemies who might be targeting me to get to him. You know, that’s what this could be about. Someone setting me up for the robberies or just capitalizing on them as a way of getting at Leonardo.”
“What did he say?” Jeremiah asked, serious now. She could almost feel his mind opening, taking in a new scenario.
“He has enemies-the usual jealousies and lost loves and whatnot-but he can’t think of anyone who would take their animosity toward him out on me, and certainly not in such a byzantine approach.”
“Did he say byzantine?”
“Yes, why not?”
“I don’t think my father and I have ever used byzantine with each other, even when I studied Constantinople in the sixth grade. Okay. Never mind. Go on.”
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