ItTakesaThief

by Dee Brice

  He started to rise, but found his wrist caught in an implacable grip. “She would not steal from friends,” Esmeralda insisted in a quiet voice.

  “How do you know? I thought you just met her last night.”

  “Emilio has known her for many years. And I trust my own judgment. She is filled with grief, that one.”

  “For her husband?” Damian felt an uncharacteristic surge of jealousy that he smothered with characteristic cynicism. Given her passionate response to him, he doubted Tiffany’s grief went very deep.

  “For many things, I suppose, including William. I know he was a very selfish man, her husband. Weak. More concerned with appearances than with making her happy. Do not judge her too hastily, Damian. You know nothing about her, only what is written on the pages of her dossier. Pages have no soul, no grasp of human passions. Or frailty.”

  “Why would her father condone such a marriage?”

  Esmeralda’s delicately arched eyebrows rose briefly. “Charles Cartierri plays his own games. And as for William’s father, Sir James, too, has his own agenda.” With that cryptic remark, his godmother stood. Damian also rose.

  “Your lady has gone riding with Rogelio.” She sighed, her expression fond yet long-suffering. “Like his grandfather, my grandson is overly proud of our emeralds and is anxious to show off his knowledge to a lovely young woman. If you take the Land Rover you should catch up with them at the mine.”

  “I hope Security is alert,” Damian muttered, then flushed under his godmother’s disapproving stare.

  With a cool nod she left him standing in a ray of sunshine while a smile curved his lips. On second thought, he hoped Security was very lax. He would not mind doing a strip search of Tiffany Cartierri. Indeed, he would not mind that at all.

  * * * * *

  Shading her eyes with one hand, TC held up the emerald to the sun with her other hand. Green fire flared deep within the gem and refracted that glow over Rogelio’s eager, young face.

  “What do you think, m’ijo? Is it worth the price?”

  Fixing his jeweler’s loupe over one judicious eye, the ten-year-old took the stone and examined it carefully. “You might do better at Muzo,” he said after several minutes. “See, here, TC. The gem might crack later along this inclusion. Or here.”

  “Oiling won’t help?”

  For a moment her young companion looked uncertain, but shook his head. “I do not think so. I recommend you wait.” Turning to a hovering guard, Rogelio asked that the gem be polished and put in the vault for TC’s inspection later.

  Though his request was scrupulously polite, TC had to smother a laugh at his unconscious arrogance. Another Santana scion in the making, she thought while she and Rogelio strolled the length of the workshop and studied photographs along the wall.

  “Isabella’s Belt,” she murmured when they stopped in front of the picture that held place of pride.

  “Si. Mi abuelo…my grandfather—¿como se dice? How do you say ‘verified’ it before it shipped to France?”

  “Authenticated,” TC provided.

  “Si, authenticated.”

  “Was that done here?”

  “No, at the Museo Arqueologico in Bogotá. Abuelo was allowed to photograph it so that I could see it later. Is a fine picture, ¿si?”

  “A very fine picture,” she agreed, suspecting Rogelio’s unhappy expression was due more to the insult to his pride than out of peevishness. How difficult he must have found it, not to be allowed to view the authentication process firsthand. “Perhaps when I—when it is recovered, you can watch then.”

  “Is necessary to do again?” A puzzled frown furled his handsome brow.

  TC nodded. “To make sure it isn’t a fake.”

  “Ah.” His frown cleared for a moment, then reappeared. “Why would someone return a fake?”

  “Well, I suppose, to make people stop looking for the real one.”

  “People like Damian?”

  “Damian?” TC echoed with a frown of her own.

  “There you are,” a deep voice greeted.

  The fine hairs on her arms and nape lifting as if electrified, TC turned to see a tall figure in the open doorway. Light cast him in silhouette—sleek and powerful like a jaguar lazing in the sun. Only his voice, like the languid twitching of the cat’s tail, announced that he stalked.

  “Miss me?” Ian asked, then pulled her to him for a thorough kiss that left her giddy. And wet. And wanting.

  “Stop that!” she demanded when he released her but continued to run his hands over her hips and bottom. He tasted of marmalade and coffee, a taste she craved like a greedy child deprived of sweets. “What are you doing?” she whispered in his ear, wary of his motives, mistrusting her own emotions. Her traitorous body had no misgivings and quickened under his skillful caress.

  “Searching for booty,” he whispered back, his hands now gliding over her rib cage, then settling intimately beneath her swelling breasts.

  Convinced he had just accused her of stealing, TC protested. “Ian!” She almost had forgotten his parting salvo last night. His comment now, no matter how playful, reminded her what he truly thought of her. In his mind she was a thief at best. And possibly a murder. For Rogelio’s sake, however, she could not make a scene.

  “That’s my name,” Ian said, grinning at Rogelio while ruffling the youngster’s thick, dark hair.

  Rogelio blushed, a reaction TC found disquieting until she remembered how, at Rogelio’s age, she had hated being treated like a child. Besides, last night, between hours of sleeplessness, she had dreamed. She’d dreamed the dream that, before her “accident” in London, had always forewarned her of danger. She was on guard now, her nerves sounding alarms like a klaxon on an English police car.

  “Señorita TC?”

  Rogelio’s pull on her sleeve interrupted her narrow-eyed contemplation of Ian’s rugged and far-too-innocent-looking face. “What is it, Rogelio?”

  “Señor Ian has brought a picnic. Can we go, TC? Can we?”

  Grinning at Rogelio as he hopped from foot to foot, TC nodded. “But only if we can watch the mining from up there.” She pointed out the window, at a location about halfway up the side of a steep hill.

  “You won’t see anything from there,” Rogelio said wisely.

  “Come on, guys,” she insisted, stepping around Ian and striding through the open door into sunlight. “Ian, you take Serendipity and Rogelio can ride double with me on Diablo. We’ll still beat you there,” she flung over her shoulder at Ian. She boosted her small companion onto the stallion’s back, then swung up behind him.

  The sight of Tiffany’s rounded bottom rising nearly to eye level as she mounted distracted Damian momentarily. In the next second, he caught a flash of sunlight from the ridge, swatted Tiffany’s mount on its rump and shouted for her to ride like hell.

  Her right foot scrabbling for her stirrup, she seemed to stand on her left and curl her body around the small figure in front of her. Shots rang out, scattering dirt and gravel. Miraculously, Diablo galloped on, apparently unhurt. Shouting for the guards he knew were always on duty around the workshop and the mine, Damian prayed there was only one sniper, that no one lay in wait along the trail Diablo was sure to follow in his wild race toward home.

  Cursing at his own lack of a weapon, Damian took cover in the workshop and waited impatiently while the guards returned fire, then spread out to reconnoiter the area. When silence reigned once more, Damian sped toward the Land Rover, hampered by his crouched position and zigzag pattern.

  A string of venomous expletives muffled everything but the sound of his own voice and the groan he could not hold back after kicking a flat rear tire on the Land Rover. The damn sniper had not hit anything except his transportation, Damian thought, disgusted. But maybe that had been the intent. To strand him so he could not protect Tiffany or Rogelio.

  “I suppose this means our picnic’s off,” a cool voice said from somewhere above his head.

  Standing, he
yelled, “What the hell are you doing back here?” He pulled Tiffany and Rogelio off Diablo’s back and herded them inside, using his body to shield them as best he could.

  When, in his opinion, they were safe, he seized Tiffany’s shoulders and shook her. To his consternation, he discovered her regarding him from pain-filled green eyes while he rocked back and forth.

  “That’s okay, Ian,” she said before he could voice his sudden, seemingly unwarranted concern, “I was scared, too. Rogelio, however, was cool as glass. He suggested we hang out until things quieted down, then come back here and call Emilio. No sense risking Diablo’s stepping in a foxhole, right, hombre?” she asked, dropping her hand to the shoulder of her silent and very pale companion.

  “Good thinking, amigo,” Damian said, obeying the warning in Tiffany’s eyes not to make the incident worse than it was. “Why don’t I call your grandfather while you get Tiffany a glass of water? She looks as if she might pass out.”

  Although her eyes flared with indignation, Tiffany swayed slightly. “I think I need to sit down,” she admitted, a tremor in her husky voice that made Damian look at her sharply and wonder if she was going into shock for real.

  “Do they keep any brandy around here?”

  “Si…Ian. I will get it.” Rogelio swaggered away, his narrow shoulders held as proudly as a matador fearlessly facing a dozen bulls.

  “Well, you certainly made him feel like a hero,” Damian said to Tiffany.

  “He was one.”

  “Are you all right?” Damian hunkered down and tipped her averted face to his.

  “Don’t let Rogelio’s mother come here,” she whispered, her face blanched, her lips even whiter. “Help me to the Land Rover and keep Rogelio away… Tell him I’m…puking.” With that, she fainted in his arms.

  “Damn,” Damian swore as he eased Tiffany across his thighs. Holding her, willing her to open her eyes and make some sarcastic remark about fooling him, he stroked her thick damp hair away from her pale face.

  Murder in his heart, he swore again. It was not sweat that stained his hand but Tiffany’s blood.

  * * * * *

  When TC opened her eyes and finally got them to focus, the first thing she saw was a blown-up picture of her left ankle encircled by a slave bracelet. The second thing she saw was Ian’s face.

  “How do you feel?” he asked, his gentle voice at odds with the banked fury she saw in his eyes.

  “Fine. In fact, I feel just dandy.” She struggled to sit up, but a stab of pain behind her eyes felled her. With a groan, she sank back against the pillows.

  “Liar.”

  “Okay, fine. I feel like hell. Now, go away and let me die in peace.”

  He strode out of her line of vision, but returned before she even blinked.

  “Open your mouth,” he ordered. Before she thought to argue she did as he demanded and nearly gagged as the bitter aspirin tablet dissolved on her tongue.

  His hands incredibly gentle, Ian lifted her, then slid behind her. Cradling her against his chest, he held a glass to her dry lips and tipped water down her parched throat.

  “Why the hell did you not tell me you had been shot?”

  His roughened fingertips stroked her temple, then slid like silk to her nape. Sighing her contentment, she relaxed against him. “I didn’t realize it at first. Then, when I knew we were safe, I didn’t want to scare Rogelio.” She turned her head and nuzzled Ian’s warm neck, aware on a subliminal level that his breath caught and held.

  “He was so damn brave, Ian. I thought the only things between us and death were my knees guiding Diablo.” She chuckled, then gasped as pain, less severe than before, lanced through her scalp. “But Rogelio saved us. He’d had hold of the reins before I mounted and he kept hold of them even when Diablo bolted. So brave,” she repeated, savoring the touch of Ian’s lips on her throat.

  “Why did you not want his mother coming to the mine?”

  When his lips left hers, she sighed again. When she could speak she said, “Her hysterics would have frightened him.”

  “You have a low opinion of mothers,” Ian teased. “Why would she have had hysterics?”

  TC’s lips curled in a soft smile. “For an experienced man, you don’t know diddly squat about women.”

  “Why, Tiffany?”

  “Mothers,” she griped, “always fall apart once the crisis is over. Goes with the territory.”

  “Did yours? Fall apart, I mean?”

  “Unum. Never,” she yawned and pressed against his solid strength, “had a crisis. Charles saw to that. G’night, Ian.”

  “G’night, Tiffany. Darling.”

  * * * * *

  When she next opened her eyes, her vision was filled by Rogelio’s concerned young face. “Hola, hombre. ¿Que tal?”

  “Good morning, TC. What’s happening with you?”

  “You tell me. How hails the conquering hero? Are you okay?”

  “Mi madre,” her young friend began, then shrugged with all the insouciance of a full-grown Latino male. “My mother behaved in a motherly manner.”

  TC slid back until she could lean against the headboard, then pulled the covers over her chest. “Ouch,” she complained when her tender head connected with solid Colombian hardwood.

  “You were shot,” Rogelio stated unequivocally as he backed off her bed and turned away. Moments later he returned with a glass of chilled, fresh-squeezed orange juice.

  “Yes, I was shot.”

  “You said nothing.”

  “I’ve heard this record before,” she muttered under her breath and said, “What could I say? ‘Rogelio, m’ijo, I’ve been shot’? What would you have done then?”

  “Exactly what I did, mujer. Take you back to the mine and call for help.”

  “Bravo, señor.”

  “Señorita Brava,” Rogelio scoffed, then grinned.

  Sensing they were at an impasse, TC raised her glass in a silent toast. William was the only person she had ever known who could best her in duel of words.

  “Your health,” she said finally. “Sante.”

  Rogelio joined in the traditional toast until, reaching the final words about the importance of love, Ian interrupted.

  “The very most important item at this moment is Isabella’s Belt,” Ian said.

  Her gaze jerked to her open doorway but, despite Ian’s forbidding expression, she said evenly, “In a manner of speaking. Money is important. Which you might equate to Isabella’s Belt.”

  “I? What about you?”

  Rogelio, sliding off her bed, beat a hasty retreat out of the room. Ian stalked to her bedside and perched on it like a carrion waiting for its victim’s last breath.

  “Why would somebody want to kill you, Tiffany?”

  “Who put me in my pajamas? You?”

  “Dios, no. Esmeralda would not allow such impropriety while she was awake to prevent it.” He took her hands and gazed intently into her eyes.

  She fought the lure of concern she saw in those dark depths, the promise of safety if she would only trust him. But she couldn’t trust him, not when two attempts had been made on her life. Not when, both times, he was practically the only one who knew where she would be. Esmeralda might have told Emilio, but neither of them would do anything to endanger Rogelio. That left Ian and someone to help him give the appearance of innocence. Someone who was as much a monster as Ian himself and preyed on innocent little boys.

  At that thought she averted her gaze from Ian’s ensorcelling eyes and focused on the picture of her ankle that hung on the wall. That, if nothing else, convinced her she couldn’t trust him.

  Ian followed her gaze, then turned back to regard her with a satisfied gleam in his eyes. “An incriminating piece of evidence. That picture was taken when you visited the Musée de Luxembourg. The day Isabella’s Belt was stolen.”

  Recognizing his game, TC grinned and tilted her chin. “Circumstantial evidence, at best. More like a fortuitous coincidence.”

  �
��Fortuitous?” he repeated, clearly taken aback by her choice of words.

  “Certainly for whoever did steal Isabella’s Belt.”

  “An interesting theory. Let us assume, only for the moment, that you are guilty of nothing more than monumental stupidity.”

  Remembering her conversation with Sir James, TC blushed, but managed to say in an even tone laced with irony, “Thanks for your confidence in me.”

  With catlike grace, Ian waved aside her comment and fixed her with the intense gaze of a jaguar ready to pounce.

  “If you did not steal Isabella’s Belt, why would somebody want to kill you?”

  “I didn’t and I don’t think anybody does.” At his blank look, she patted his hand in a patronizing manner she knew would irritate the hell out of him. He glared. She grinned. “Look, if somebody’s a good enough shot to crease my scalp, he easily could have put a bullet in my brain.”

  “Precisely what he intended to do. Only a ‘fortuitous coincidence’—you happened to be moving instead of sitting still—saved you.”

  Feeling the blood leave her brain, TC gasped and clutched the covers to her chest.

  “You are frightened. Good,” he said, smiling grimly. “About bloody damn time. Now, for the last time, why does somebody want you dead?”

  “Couldn’t Rogelio have been the sniper’s target? You know, some enemy of Emilio’s taking his revenge out on the child?”

  Ian reached into his back pocket and pulled out a set of handcuffs.

  TC stared at them, then looked up at his stony expression and voiced a nervous giggle. “Unless you’re a sworn member of some police agency, you can’t arrest me.”

  He reached for her wrists. She buried her hands and the sheet under her hips and held on tight. He would have to strip the bed before she let him get hold of her.

  When he continued to stare at her in icy silence, TC huffed once and gave in. “Oh, all right! I have a reputation among certain less savory elements for ruthlessness.” His eyebrows twitched as if he agreed with her detractors. “By that I mean I’m tenacious. I stick with a case until I recover the goods. Well, aren’t you going to say something?”