by Beverly Bird
“Whatever you want.” He deposited her in the shower. Jeans and all.
She didn’t have the Rose. She didn’t even have the paste ruby. But when he threw the towel aside and stepped in after her, when he nuzzled that spot behind her ear, for that moment Tara had everything she wanted.
She could do nothing but drive her hands into his hair and hold on while his lips teased over her breasts and down her tummy to the stubborn snap of her sodden jeans. This time he popped it free. And as wet as they were, somehow he managed to get them off her in the time it took to make a wish.
“I’m good.”
“Oh, yes.” She laughed shakily. Then his mouth found her through the thin fabric of her panties and Tara groaned, tilting her head back until it hit against the tiles of the shower stall.
“Let me love you,” she heard him say. Or maybe it was her own heart. Her legs threatened to give out.
Hot water pelted down on her face until she wasn’t sure which was the shower water and which were her tears. A long time later, he caught her in his arms when her knees would finally have bent. He slipped into her and everything inside her tightened again, ready, hungry. His mouth found hers again as she tightened around him and they went over the edge together.
She had no memory of getting back to the bed, but she knew they must have slept. Tara stirred beside him a long time later, the small of her back aching a little, her thigh muscles feeling tingly and sore, when his cell phone rang. She lifted her head to look at the bedside clock as she considered again how blissful it was to wake feeling this way…spent and exhausted, invigorated and full.
“Fox Whittington,” he said into the phone.
She rolled onto her back to look up at him. The most likely person to call him on his cell phone would be Rafe Montiel.
She watched Fox’s face change, clearing then frowning. He didn’t say much but he stayed on the line for twenty minutes. Tara shifted and curled against him. Finally, she could stand it no more. She sat up.
“What?” she whispered.
He disconnected and laid the phone on the covers. “Come here.” He put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer. “The gemologist’s name is Celia Davenport and Rafe has been hammering at her since…well, since about the time we arrived here.”
“On Christmas night? His wife…”
“Kate met Rafe under the worst of circumstances. And she’s the forgiving sort.”
“How did her pudding fare?”
“I didn’t ask.”
She realized she was swaying the conversation, holding the last facts at bay because…because once she knew them, once all the pieces clicked into place, the whole reason they were together would be over.
“Celia Davenport talked, too. She gave up Acosta. Honor among thieves.” Fox rested his cheek on the crown of her head. “I was right. She says Carmen had the Rose copied in case the court ruled against him. But in order to have it made—and Celia made it—he had to let her in on what he was doing. One look at your Rose and she knew what it was. She wasn’t willing to make the copy for a mere fee. She wanted a cut of the profits.”
“What profits? They couldn’t possibly sell two of them without arousing suspicion!”
“They were going to give the fake back to you and cut the real one down.”
Cut it down. Her stomach heaved. “Twenty-four carats. It was twenty-four carats.” No. Not Tzigane’s Rose. “Is that…is that where it is, what happened to it?”
It would make ten, twelve, fifteen very nice settings, Fox thought. The truth was, since it had vanished into thin air, it seemed likely. “I don’t know, darlin’. I just don’t know. Petro Acosta was the liaison between Carmen and Celia. He was the one who held all your stepbrother’s gambling chits. Stephen promised he could pay him off with the proceeds from the Rose, plus some for his patience, so Acosta put him in touch with Celia. Celia says that when the court legitimately awarded Carmen the ruby, the three of them decided they could sell the same stone twice. They would pass the fake off as the real thing and sell it in one piece while they cut the real one down. Then you called that night and offered to buy the real one yourself.”
Tara turned and buried her face against his chest. “I told Stephen that Charlie was involved and that he wanted to put the Rose in the museum.”
“Charlie?” The man in her date book, Fox remembered. Her date at the Four Seasons. He wasn’t prepared for the way the mere name twisted his gut now, so many weeks later. Who the hell was the guy?
“Charlie Branigan,” she said. “My mother tossed him over for Scott Carmen. When she got the Rose, she wanted security more than love. I always thought she made a mistake. Charlie’s a love. Eccentric but dear. Anyway, Scott Carmen was her heart’s desire, not Charlie.”
His insides unraveled. Slowly. “He was involved in all this?”
“He’s the major benefactor behind the Hoyt Museum. I told you I was pretty much out of money. He was going to help me buy the ruby back from Stephen and we were going to put it on display there. But someone at the Hoyt would have authenticated it. Stephen had to have known that. He’d known he’d have to sell me the real one if that was what I was going to do with it.”
“Your stepbrother was not a good person, Tara.”
She closed her eyes and pressed her face to his chest. “I know.”
“Celia said he turned on them. He was going to sell the real stone to you that night and cut out on her and Acosta—after all, there’d be nothing left to sell. They couldn’t cut down paste. He was going to skip town with whatever you paid him and start over somewhere else without divvying anything up with his partners. But he slipped up and mentioned something to Acosta about you coming over at seven. Acosta put two and two together and got there at five-thirty. He told Celia both rocks were on the desk. They argued about Carmen’s intentions and Acosta grabbed them. Carmen went after him with the fireplace poker and Acosta managed to get the thing away from him but the real Rose went flying in the scuffle. Acosta ended up killing your stepbrother—an accident, Celia says—and he panicked. He fled with the ruby he still held.”
“Then he went to Celia,” she guessed hollowly. “With the fake.”
“She took one look at the ruby he had and knew it was the wrong one. She’d made it, after all. She sent Ernie Johnson—the guy who’s been tailing you—back to Carmen’s house. He saw you creeping out and you know the rest. By the time everyone cleared off the premises and he went inside, the Rose was gone. They thought you had it.”
“I would have if not for the dog.”
There was no way he could fix that for her. There was no way he could make it right. And it made something burn in his chest.
Dawn was inching in the windows, a pearly pink stealing under the drapes, when he finally asked. “If it had turned out differently, if you hadn’t lost it that night, what would you have wished for? You never did tell me your heart’s desire.”
Tara closed her eyes. She couldn’t tell him. She couldn’t stand to see the discomfort—or worse yet, the pity—in his eyes because he could not reciprocate her feelings. “You never told me what the C stands for, either,” she murmured, “so I guess we’re even.”
What had he wanted her to say? He’d wanted her to give when she’d never learned how to because everything had always been taken from her. He steeled himself against the disappointment, but it hurt.
“Chamuel,” he said quietly.
“What?”
“That’s my name. Chamuel Fox Whittington.”
She choked. “No wonder you just use the C.”
He gave a low, pained chuckle. “Go back to sleep. We’ve got a few hours yet before we have to leave.”
Tara rolled over and found his mouth again instead. They were still her hours. He was here on her case. And she’d use them as she damned well pleased.
Chapter 19
Halfway home, they received word that Acosta had been detained outside an airport in Pittsburgh, tryin
g to outrun two murder charges. After that, the drive seemed long and quiet and empty without the dog.
“She was a little off from the start, you know,” Tara said finally.
Fox slanted her a look. “Who?”
“Belle. Remember that first day she turned up at headquarters and I chased her down the hall? She got back to the R-H unit without passing me. That was weird.”
“Maybe you were just distracted by my good looks and charming smile.”
She’d been distracted, Tara admitted, but not by that. She remembered how he’d protected her during that interview. Then her brows drew together in a frown and she looked more closely at Fox. He was shifting his weight uncomfortably in the driver’s seat. “What’s wrong?”
He shrugged. “I mentioned her disappearing act to Rafe last night.”
“And?”
“He says she was definitely the same pooch he and Kate ended up toting around last summer when he met her.”
“Well, it was obvious she knew him from somewhere.”
“Kate was a witness in a murder case. Belle sort of landed in the middle of that crime scene the same way she did with you.”
Tara’s eyes narrowed. “What else did Rafe say?” There was more, she thought. He still looked discomfitted. “And why didn’t he tell us this sooner?”
“He didn’t think we’d believe him until after she pulled her vanishing act on us, too.”
“She did it to them?”
“She disappeared out of Rafe’s townhouse and it was locked up tight.”
“Then she just decided she’d pay a visit to Stephen six months or so later? No way.”
“Well, she did. If you maintain that she was the mutt in the library that night then that’s exactly what she did.”
“So what are you saying? She’s some kind of…of ghost dog? Some supernatural being?”
“Actually, Kate and her friend Shawnalee think she’s an angel.”
Tara let her jaw drop, then she laughed. “Well, then, God certainly has a sense of humor.”
Fox gave a sheepish smile. “You’ve got to admit no real dog could have gotten out of this car the way she did.”
She couldn’t argue with that, Tara thought. But still…
“She saved Shawnalee’s life,” Fox said. “She saved Kate’s life. And she saved yours in that elevator.”
“So that’s her mission? To save women who have the misfortune of stumbling headfirst into murder cases through no fault of their own?”
There was more to it than that, Fox thought. How had Rafe put it? Love, murder and mayhem follow that pup wherever she goes. They’d had murder, Fox thought, and there had been plenty of mayhem these last two weeks. And he was in love with her. So what was he supposed to do about that?
When he’d asked her this morning about her heart’s desire, giving her the perfect chance to say something—anything—that he could have used as a guidepost, she’d evaded his question. Which was, he thought, an answer in itself.
They were nearing her neighborhood, but he wasn’t ready to let her go. “Why don’t you stay at my place again tonight?”
Her heart tripped. And she yearned. “Why?”
He thought fast. “Because your apartment’s still torn up from one end to the other. We can head over there first thing in the morning and have a full day to set it back to rights. It’s already four o’clock now.”
Something unbearably sad shimmied through her. Tara felt the hurt like the air she breathed. She closed her eyes against it.
He hadn’t suggested that she go with him because he wanted her there, because something magic had happened between them during their hunt for the Rose and he didn’t want it to end. He’d suggested it because he was just taking care of her…again. Still.
“I want to go home.”
It wasn’t what he expected to hear. Fox looked at her quizzically.
“Take me home. Please. I just want to go home.” She could have reached over and slapped him, Tara thought, and she doubted if his expression would be any more surprised. From the beginning, he hadn’t taken it well when she’d fought back against his gallant and gentlemanly efforts to shield her.
She watched his face and fury poured into her blood so suddenly and so hotly, she jerked with the force of it. How dare he? She thought of the apartment she was about to go back to, all ripped and ruined and upended, just like her life. All she had left were a bunch of messy, jagged pieces that had once formed something she’d held dear…her independence, her clean, unencumbered world where nothing got so close to her anymore as to hurt her. She’d had that—and he had shattered it.
Now she couldn’t figure out how to get all the pieces of herself put back together again. She’d always been strong. She knew her way through the dark. She’d never needed anybody!
Until him. So now what? Now what? He’d given her just enough to make her need, and now he wouldn’t—couldn’t—give her what she needed.
By the time he stopped the Mustang in front of her apartment building, Tara was trembling hard.
“Damn it,” he said quietly, but with a bite. “Look at you. You’re not ready to face that mess upstairs again after everything you’ve been through.”
“Stop it! Stop taking care of me!” She couldn’t stand it, Tara thought, not for another moment, not for another breath. There was nothing behind it but his natural inclination to be kind. She pushed his hand away frantically when he reached for her, then gathered what tattered dignity she had left.
She got out of the car quickly and reached into the back seat for her bag. “Thanks for everything.” If her voice cracked at the end, if it wasn’t flippant or cool or any of the things it might have been before all this had started, before he’d come into her life, then she just pretended she didn’t notice it. “That apartment you got us was fantastic. The tub was a real once-in-a-lifetime experience.”
“I wouldn’t know. I never got the chance to use it. You stole a page from Acosta’s calendar and had us running pell-mell to Boston.”
She waved a hand. “But it all worked out fine, didn’t it? You’ll call me if anything else comes up, right? Like a lead on the ruby?”
“Of course I’ll call you.”
“Well, then. Got to go.” Before I fall apart. Tara slammed the car door hard.
She would not run. But by the time Tara walked into her lobby, the tears that had been burning her eyes splashed over. Something painfully hard and hot was stuck in her throat and she couldn’t swallow. She grabbed her anger again and held onto it fiercely. And by the time she got to her apartment, it had managed to take over.
Damn him! Tara stabbed her key into the lock, then she grabbed the handle and turned it angrily. She stepped inside and looked around. Stay mad, she warned herself. She had to keep up this fury in her blood, had to block everything else out until some hour, some day, when maybe, just maybe, she could stand it.
She took her jacket off and hung it in the closet. She dropped her bag on the bedroom floor. She’d have this place liveable in two hours, she decided. Only a slow-talking, hot-eyed Southerner would think it would take all day.
She started in the kitchen. The sight of her faux fur coat still trapped half in the trash chute stoked her temper all over again. She grabbed that first, yanking hard.
And something flew out of its folds.
After everything she’d been through, Tara was gun shy. She cried out and ducked instinctively but it still hit her in the cheek and it stung. She clapped a hand there…then she heard the soft ting of whatever it had been hitting the metal of an overturned pot.
She jerked around. Whatever had hit her had been warm. And, she was almost sure, it had been red. She’d caught only that first surprising glimpse of it as it had shot toward her…but it had been red!
Her Rose? In her coat?
It was no more inexplicable than disappearing dogs. Tara’s heart began thudding as she dropped to her knees. She ran crazed hands through the rubble on t
he floor. She found it nestled in a spill of broken glass.
Her Rose.
She sat hard on the floor with both hands wrapped around the stone and everything she’d been trying not to feel reared up. All of the fear and the laughter, his warm kisses and the cold touch of steel at her throat. Everything that had happened in the last two weeks hit her in a wave and pummeled her. And now, somehow, incredibly she had her ruby back. It was too much. She thought she could feel its heart pulse in her hands. Tara finally let herself cry.
You never told me about your heart’s desire. She’d had it, for hours and days that had been sweeter than she could bear, Tara thought. Then she’d lost it.
If you did have it, what would you wish for? She’d wish for what she had ached for all her life, what she’d finally found in the arms of a single man. Someone she could finally trust.
But he was gone. No matter how tightly she held the Rose, no matter how much she wished, the rooms of her apartment stayed cold and empty and shattered. Maybe the Rose’s legend was only that, she thought, a legend, a tale, a story, nothing more.
Full dark had fallen when she finally got to her feet, spent and stiff, and made her way into her bedroom alone. She dropped onto the bed, exhausted, feeling broken. She realized she didn’t have the heart for fixing the place up tonight after all.
“And you just let her go?” Kate cried, horrified. “That’s not the way it’s supposed to be. No, no, no!”
Rafe glared at Fox. “Damn it, look what you’ve done. You’re going to send her into premature labor or something.”
Fox rubbed a tired hand over his jaw. They were in the Montiels’ living room. He’d gone home and found he couldn’t stay there. He was restless. He was hurt.
She had left him. Just…left him when it was all over.
He watched Kate pacing back and forth in front of the coffee table. “That’s an old wives’ tale,” he muttered. “You can’t upset a woman into going into labor.”
“I forgot,” Rafe said caustically. “You know everything about pregnancy. But I’ll tell you one thing, pal. You know zip about women.”