Improper Conduct

by Patricia Rosemoor

  Guilt grazed his insides, but he brushed the unfamiliar sensation away.

  Guilt was for the weak and he wasn’t a weak man. The last thirty years were proof of that.

  His chest squeezed painfully. He rubbed at it, then went to the highboy for the antacids in the top drawer.

  Isabel would fix it, he assured himself as he chewed the temporary relief. He needed to keep calm. Isabel would fix things. Always had. He’d trained her well from the time she was a tot at his knee, wanting his attention. She would do anything for him, he reminded himself. Anything to win his love.

  Besides, she was her mother’s daughter, and if there was one thing her mother knew how to do, it was to put on a good face for the world.

  “William, what are you doing up at this hour?”

  “Worrying.”

  “Well, don’t. Come to me and I’ll make it all better.”

  “If only you could, Amber.”

  “All right, then I’ll make it better for now.”

  Rising from the bed, she came to him and knelt before him.

  Amber had always made him forget his troubles, even if only for now.

  NICK AWOKE AT DAYLIGHT with Isabel tangled around him, sleeping soundly.

  He lay still, afraid to move, afraid to touch this tempting woman until he got his morning hard-on under control.

  But she was truly irresistible, with her full lips parted in sleep and her…

  No, not again, he told himself. Three times in twice as many hours was enough. More than enough.

  With her, he’d experienced some of the best sex that he’d ever had. Ever. But if he’d crazily thought sleeping with his first woman one more time would get her out of his system after all these years, he’d been sorely mistaken.

  Moreover, though he didn’t want to explore why too closely, Nick recognized that while his body craved more, inside he wasn’t feeling so good about the experience.

  Disengaging his mind from the plush nude body pressed against his for the moment, he tried concentrating on the dance video he needed to start shooting for Club Undercover. But his idea of using images of the city at night only reminded him of Isabel.

  Brightly lit towers transformed into pale silky hair whose shots of silver glinted against the dark night sky. The lake undulating in a lazy rhythm became her hips moving over him. And Buckingham Fountain with its shooting geyser made him think of his coming in her again.

  Groaning, he chanced waking her by slipping out from under her limbs, but Isabel remained dead to the world as if she hadn’t slept in days. Considering the depth of her concern for her sister, perhaps she hadn’t.

  And he’d taken advantage of that. Of her.

  How could he have done it?

  No matter which way he cut it, he’d used her, even after deciding he was better than that. Better than her father. Better than Isabel herself.

  Was he really?

  Even now, away from her, he had a hard-on that wouldn’t quit. He wanted her now. He wanted her hard and fast. He wanted her soft and slow. He wanted her any way he could have her.

  He was in pain from wanting her again, but he couldn’t let her know that. Couldn’t give her the advantage. She still had lessons to learn, but after last night undoubtedly she expected him to be putty in her hands.

  The image that thought conjured made him groan yet again.

  Too bad the place didn’t come equipped with a shower. He could use a cold one. At least there was cold water of some kind, he thought gratefully, turning on the sink faucet. He ran his hands and arms under the stream, then ducked his head and doused his face, his neck, his hair, his chest. He kept dousing lower and lower until the chill got him under control.

  What now? he wondered, knowing one look at her nude body would undoubtedly stir him all over again.

  He would avoid looking at her. He would snatch up his clothes, dress, wait in the other room.

  But he didn’t have to worry about that. By the time he returned to their temporary quarters, she was up and dressed herself, her back turned to him as she zipped her jeans.

  “Good morning,” he murmured, staring at her derriere appreciatively, feeling the return of his erection.

  “Morning.”

  She glanced back at him, started, whipped her head away again and hid behind a curtain of hair. So his nudity bothered her. He guessed she’d gotten more than she’d bargained for, even as he had.

  “I’ll be right back,” she muttered, grabbing her backpack and leaving him standing there.

  A moment later, he heard the water running. Was she just washing up or was she having to cool down just as he had? Doubtful. Isabel was the one who believed in expediency, he reminded himself.

  By the time she returned, wearing a fresh T-shirt, her hair brushed and pulled back into a ponytail once more, he was dressed.

  “What now?” she asked.

  “We look for your sister.”

  “What about breakfast?”

  “We could get coffee and some kind of breakfast sandwich at a fast-food place, I guess. But you’d better watch your money,” he warned her. “When it’s gone, it’s gone.”

  “I have an ATM card!” she said sharply.

  “Which you won’t be using, not if you want my help.”

  After gaping for a moment, she said, “You certainly have a lot of rules.”

  “It’s my game.”

  “Is that what Louise is to you—a game?”

  “The hunt itself is a game, yes.” At least the way he was making her play it. But he never took a person’s safety lightly, especially not when that person was too young to fend for herself. But Isabel was a big girl now.

  “Well, then I’d say you’re one hell of a…” She took a deep breath and said, “Never mind. Let’s get going.”

  Nick wondered what Isabel had been tempted to call him. Tyrant? Bastard? Prick? How could he blame her when she didn’t know why he was torturing her? Undoubtedly, she assumed this was some sort of revenge, and maybe it was. But not in the way she thought.

  WHY SHE STILL WANTED NICK, Isabel had no idea, but there it was. No matter how impossible he got with her at times, she took it. She tried to tell herself she was doing this for Louise.

  Liar! her inner voice whispered. You’re doing this for yourself, because what happened between you and Nick was never settled.

  True enough. Her father had taken that opportunity from her. Only Nick had no clue about what had really happened. And she didn’t know if she could ever tell him. If she could ever give him that power over her.

  Not having had a real dinner the night before, she was starving. But heeding Nick’s warning about doling out her remaining cash carefully, Isabel chose cheap. Her fast-food breakfast sandwich went down easier than she’d thought it might. And tasted better.

  Sipping her coffee, she noted Nick checking out every person who came into the place.

  “Looking for someone?”

  “That’s the idea, right?”

  “You mean Louise—”

  “Not specifically. Just someone who might have run into her.”

  Looking over the patrons herself, she asked, “How can you tell?”

  “What?”

  “A runaway.”

  “You can’t always. Depends on how long they’ve been on the street.”

  “Why? What changes?” she asked. “What is it you actually see? Is it the clothes—”

  “An edge. They’re more alert to the minutiae around them. And more distrustful.”

  Isabel didn’t want to go into the reasons. “But you don’t see any in here.”

  He shook his head.

  “Then maybe we ought to go where the chances are better.”

  Taking their coffees, they went to a local park. Another one. An empty one but for two women with baby strollers on the walkway.

  Barely midmorning, the day was already hot.

  Isabel threw herself on a bench in the shade of a big old tree and slugged down s
ome coffee. “So be honest with me, Nick. Are we wasting our time?”

  “You tell me.” He stepped onto the bench and sat on the back of it, gazing around the park, ever alert. “We can quit whenever you say so.”

  “I don’t want to quit. I want to find my sister.”

  “Then we’re not wasting our time. But you’re as impatient as ever.”

  “Me, impatient?”

  “Remember the day you wanted to go swimming in the lake because it turned hot suddenly, and I told you that the water would still be too cold? You wouldn’t listen.”

  “And I nearly froze to death.” Remembering the incident at the start of their relationship, she laughed. Laughing felt good. She couldn’t remember the last time something had truly amused her. “And you had to warm me up.” Heat her up was more like it, she thought with a delicious shiver. “How was I supposed to know it would be so cold? It was June, for heaven’s sake!”

  “But we’re talking about Lake Michigan.” Nick raised his eyebrows at her. “And then there was the time you insisted on cutting your own hair because you just had to change your look that day and your stylist was on vacation.”

  Isabel winced at that particular memory. “Ouch. That was a change, all right. I looked like a porcupine.”

  “I thought you looked cute.”

  Recognizing the soft tone that used to thrill her to her toes, a breathless Isabel insisted, “But I wanted to look sophisticated.”

  She wanted to look that way for Nick, actually, she remembered. Nearly two years younger than he, she’d always been afraid that an older girl would turn his head.

  “And then there was the time—”

  “All right,” she said with a laugh. “Enough, already. I get the picture. I’ve always been too impatient.”

  Reminiscing about the old days softened her mood, though. She recollected whole days then when she’d been happy—when she’d been with Nick. In a strange way, she was happy now, just being with him, talking with him. It was almost as if all those years had never passed.

  “On the other hand,” Isabel said, “you were too relaxed. Nothing seemed to bother you.”

  “Or maybe I was a good actor.”

  Starting at his odd tone, she asked, “Were you acting, Nick? About everything?”

  “You still don’t trust me, do you?”

  She hesitated only a second before hedging. “Still? What makes you think I didn’t trust you?”

  “Did you? Do you now?”

  “Mmm.” She made the inconclusive sound while sipping her now-cold coffee.

  He shook his head. “If you trusted me, Isabel, you would tell me why Louise ran.”

  Back to that again. “What does why matter so much that you’re stuck on it?”

  He gave her a long, hard look before saying, “No reason, really. Just curiosity.”

  Despite his denial, the morning turned sour. And got hotter under his intense gaze. And Isabel’s joke about taking a dip in the lake again didn’t bring a smile back to Nick’s lips.

  Mouth suddenly dry, not knowing how to relieve the tension, Isabel was about to suggest they get going when her backpack started ringing.

  Hands shaking, she ripped into it in search of the cell phone. Her father wouldn’t call unless it was an emergency, and few other people had the number because the phone was so new. But Louise was one of those people, she thought, unable to get the damn phone unfolded fast enough. A quick glance at her caller ID showed a number that she didn’t recognize.

  “Hello!” she said breathlessly, her gaze locking with Nick’s.

  “Is this Izzie?” came a young, unfamiliar female voice.

  Her heart raced. Only one person used that wretched nickname. “Speaking.”

  “This is Angela from the Runaway Switchboard.”

  “Runaway Switchboard?” she echoed, and Nick slid down on the bench next to her.

  “Part of our mission is to pass on messages from runaway kids to family or friends.”

  Snugged up to her side now, Nick pressed his head to hers, and Isabel ignored the immediate flush that went through her. Obviously he wanted to hear, too, so she tilted the phone from her ear slightly.

  “Did Louise, um, Lulu ask you to call?”

  “She did,” Angela said. “She wanted you to know that she’s all right.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t have that information. I only pass on what I’m asked to.”

  Not wanting to let go of this link to her sister, Isabel asked, “Did she say when she was coming home? Or that she wanted to see me elsewhere?”

  “Let me read her message,” Angela said. “‘Izzie, I love you. Don’t try to find me, because knowing what I do about Daddy, I can’t live in that house anymore. But you don’t have to worry about me. I’m safe. Lulu.’”

  Safe—what did that mean? A place to stay? People to take care of her?

  “When did Lulu call?”

  “Just a few minutes ago. I took the call myself. I got you on the first try.”

  A few minutes ago. Thank God she was all right, at least for the moment.

  “Can I give you a message to pass on to her?” Isabel asked.

  “I can’t guarantee she’ll actually get it. She would have to call in. But I can take it. Hang on—I’m setting it up on the computer.” A light click of keys was followed by “If you want, you can give it to me as if you’re talking to your sister and I’ll enter it exactly that way. Okay, go ahead.”

  Pulse threading unevenly, Isabel said, “Lulu, I’ll do whatever you need so that you’ll come home. We can get our own apartment. I’ll make a new home just for the two of us if that’s what would make you happy.”

  Angela asked, “Is that it?”

  “Please add ‘I love and miss you. Izzie.’”

  “Got it.”

  As the young woman disconnected, Isabel locked in the number of the hotline on her caller ID just in case she needed to use it later.

  And then she sat on the bench, too stunned to move. The contact with her sister hadn’t been as direct as she’d hoped for, but it was something. At least for the moment, she knew Louise was alive and well.

  Perversely she now felt like crying.

  And, as if he knew how she was feeling, Nick rubbed her shoulder and then pulled her closer into his side. She’d been so tense that she hadn’t even realized he’d wrapped his arm around her. Now she collapsed against him and let go of a strangled sob.

  “Go ahead and cry if you want,” Nick murmured, stroking her hair gently. “You don’t have to be tough all the time.”

  She let go, but only for a moment. Then with a hiccup, she brought herself back under control.

  “I’ve cried enough,” she said, choking back her emotions. “Crying doesn’t get you what you want or need.” She squeezed her eyes against the tears that threatened, anyway. “Crying won’t bring my sister home.”

  “That sounds like the senator speaking.”

  His observation was softened by the arm around her, by the hand stroking her arm, making her heart and her body quicken in response.

  “As you noted before,” she said, “we are a lot alike.”

  “Then maybe you need to cut loose, too. Getting a place for you and your sister might do you both good.”

  Even though she’d been the one to suggest it in her message to Louise, Nick’s bringing it up irritated Isabel. Certain he’d heard her sister’s message, he now knew Louise’s running had something to do with their father, something that was more than a simple fight. Any inclination to weep now swept away, she pushed away from him before he could renew that particular topic.

  “What is your hang-up about my living in the family home?” she demanded. “It wasn’t long after I graduated from college that Father got elected to the Senate, and I certainly wasn’t ready to move out then. And since then, he hasn’t spent but a few months out of each year here in Chicago. More important, Louise tried school in
D.C. for a semester but hated it. She wanted to come back, to live with me here and go to her old school, so my staying in the town house is a perfect arrangement for everyone.”

  “I’ll bet it is. The senator has you all tied up twenty-four/seven.”

  Why did he keep harping on her relationship with her father? Isabel wondered.

  “Just because your father walked out on you and your mother when you were a kid—and you always said you didn’t care—doesn’t mean that other people don’t want lasting relationships with their parents!”

  In amazement, she watched Nick close her off as surely as if a curtain had come down between them. He turned his back on her and began walking.

  He could criticize her and her father all he wanted, but let her just mention his…

  Slinging her backpack in place, she rushed after him before he could lose her.

  KNOWING WHAT I DO ABOUT DADDY…

  What had Louise meant by that? Nick wondered.

  I can’t live in that house anymore.

  Nick knew Louise’s running had something to do with the senator, something that went beyond a simple argument over her teenage quirks. That had been apparent from the first.

  Whatever it was, Isabel wouldn’t let him in on the scoop. Instead she’d used some dark truths about his own past to distract him.

  Of course, she didn’t know the whole truth about him, either, and he wasn’t about to be any more forthcoming than she. Besides, what had happened to him was ancient history.

  Just as they were ancient history, he thought regretfully.

  Knowing what I do about Daddy… Louise’s words echoed through his mind.

  She felt betrayed. He understood that feeling. Disgusted. That one, too. Only what exactly had gotten to her? Had the betrayal been public or personal?

  Considering Louise was only seventeen, Nick suspected it would have to be personal.

  Why couldn’t her message have been a little more direct?

  What the hell could Senator William Grayson have done to drive his teenage daughter from her own home?