by JoAnn Ross
“Oh, dear. And you would have been so perfect. The ladies would have gone wild for that scar on your cheek. It makes you look très dashing.” When she shook her head with regret, pins flew out of the snowy white beehive onto the plush red-and-gold carpeting. “Well, I suppose I have no choice but to keep looking. He has to be here somewhere.”
With that the conference coordinating committee woman took off with a rustle of silk.
Hell. If he hadn’t stopped to clean out his desk, he’d already be headed for blue seas. As he continued to make his way through the crowds of women, Lucas wished he’d never answered that damn phone in the first place.
Neptune’s Table was, unsurprisingly, as packed as the lobby. He stood in the doorway, looking past the iced trays of raw oysters lined up on the half shell, scanning the tables of women, searching out someone who might fit Samantha’s sketchy description.
He found her on the second survey of the room, sitting alone, half-hidden beneath a towering banana palm. Unlike most of the patrons, who were dressed in evening clothes or elaborate costumes, she was wearing a silk suit the color of sunshine on wheat, with an ivory blouse buttoned all the way to the throat and fastened with a cameo. Also, unlike the other patrons, she was working. Her fingers were literally racing over the slate gray keyboard of the laptop computer, and her eyes, behind a pair of tortoiseshell glasses, were intensely focused on the screen.
Lucas crossed the room to her table. Lost in her writing, she remained oblivious to him. He cleared his throat Nothing. Just a frown as she backspaced furiously, erasing the words on the screen. He tried again. “Excuse me?”
Murmuring something that could have been a curse, she looked up at him. As their eyes met, then momentarily held, Lucas imagined the roar of distant surf and felt himself drowning. And the crazy thing about it was that he didn’t even care.
“If I’m wrong, this is going to sound like the world’s worst pickup line. But are you the lady I’m supposed to spend the weekend with?”
She surprised him by blushing, pink color flooding prettily into cheeks so creamy she could have been the poster girl for milk. He wouldn’t have expected a woman who penned steamy romance novels to be shy. But damned if she didn’t seem to be.
“I wouldn’t exactly put it that way.”
“But you are Roberta Grace?”
“Actually, I’m Grace Fairfield. Roberta Grace is my pseudonym. And you must be Lucas Kincaid.”
“That’s me.” He held out his hand.
After a moment’s hesitation, she held out her own. Her short, neat nails were unlacquered, and a silver band, fashioned into interwoven Celtic knots, adorned her ring finger. Her skin was buttery smooth, cool and fragrant.
“I have a friend who reads romance novels.” Recognition clicked as Lucas envisioned this woman’s name penned in fancy gold script across the front of a book cover. “She was reading one of yours last week, now that I think about it. Bodice rippers, right?”
Grace Fairfield lifted her chin. Repressed passions swirled intriguingly in her eyes, contrasting with the earlier shyness. Lucas had always been a man who appreciated contrasts. He was also discovering that he was a sucker for a female in glasses.
“That just happens to be an outdated and inaccurate, not to mention insulting, term, Mr. Kincaid. For the record, I’ve never ripped a bodice yet.”
“Neither have I,” Lucas said easily. Enjoying her hauteur the same way he was enjoying looking at her, he pulled up a wooden chair and sat down at the small round table. He couldn’t quite decide whether her eyes were green or blue. But they sure were pretty. “But hope springs eternal.”
When she didn’t laugh, as he’d intended, or so much as crack a smile, he decided to try again. “I’m sorry. I certainly didn’t mean to insult you, Ms. Fairfield.” He pulled a contrition-laced smile from his repertoire, one that had always worked wonders with women from Seattle to Singapore.
The corners of herlips tilted. Just barely, but enough to let him know he was off the hook. For now.
“Apology accepted. And I didn’t mean to sound huffy. It’s just that you hit a sensitive spot.”
“I understand.” The idea of searching out a few more of the lady’s sensitive spots was definitely appealing. Samantha had been wrong about Grace’s hair. Mousy? It was the color of the melted caramel his mother used to dip apples in every fall. It was also as shiny as a shampoo commercial and looked as if it’d be soft to the touch. Lucas allowed himself a brief fantasy of loosening it from that tidy little knot she’d fashioned it into at the nape of her neck. “I also didn’t mean to interrupt your work.”
“That’s all right.” She hit the keys, saving the text. “I was going to have to be stopping soon, anyway. I’m scheduled to judge the costume pageant at tonight’s welcoming party.”
“Ah.” He nodded. “That explains the belly dancer.” He tilted his head in the direction of a woman clad in spangles and purple chiffon who was drinking a Bloody Mary and downing raw oysters with three more women all dressed like Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.
“The conference operates on several levels,” she explained. “Some of the attendees come here to network. Others to visit with friends, some to gain writing tips and publisher information from the seminars. But since just about everyone also enjoys a party, there are times it can seem a bit like a three-ring circus.”
He tipped the wooden chair on its back legs and grinned at her. “Lucky for me that I’ve always enjoyed circuses.”
She took off the dark-framed reading glasses and studied him. The frown that replaced the faint smile was not encouraging.
“So, I guess you’re in need of a hero?” he asked.
“No.” When she bit her bottom lip, Lucas decided that the sight of those white teeth sinking into that soft pink flesh was about the sexiest damn thing he’d ever seen. “I mean, I don’t think so, and I’m certain I’m overreacting. But I received another letter when I arrived at the hotel this morning, and…” Her voice drifted off.
“Yeah, my boss told me about the letters. She said something about them threatening you?”
“Well, yes.” Grace felt the embarrassed color flood into her cheeks and wished she’d just continued to ignore them. After all, Tina was undoubtedly right. Who would want to kill her? The idea was ludicrous. “I suppose,” she said reluctantly, “you could call them death threats.”
He glanced around the room. “Well, you’ve definitely landed in one helluva pool of suspects.”
Her remarkable eyes widened. “Oh, I can’t believe any one of my friends would be capable of writing such letters. We’re a very close group,” she insisted.
Lucas suspected the Borgias had probably said the same thing on occasion. “Perhaps you should let me see them,” he suggested.
“Oh. Of course.” She’d gone from pretty pink to paper pale, and although he had to give her credit for making a good stab at appearing composed, Lucas didn’t miss the tremor of her hand as she reached into her purse and took out the envelopes.
Deciding that they’d already lost the chance to check for fingerprints, he took them from her, noticing that the postmarks were from four different cities in three different states.
The paper and envelopes could have been purchased from any office supply store in the country. From the justified margins, he knew they’d been written on a computer, which made him wish for the good old days when a detective could track down a culprit by the idiosyncracies of a typewriter—a raised e, perhaps, or a broken crossbar on a t. He turned his attention to the rambling, often incoherent prose.
Grace watched him read the letters that had caused her so many sleepless nights, and admired his absolute concentration. She imagined a bomb could go off in the middle of the bar and he wouldn’t even notice. She knew the feeling well, since she was the same way herself, whenever she was writing. The thought that she and this hero-for-hire could have anything in common was more than a little disconcerting.
His
dark hair, pulled back into a very unbusinesslike ponytail, could have appeared artistic on another man, but instead gave him a rakish, dangerous appearance. When her nerves tangled again, Grace assured herself that she could handle them. After all, she certainly had in far worse situations.
After he’d read each letter carefully and twice, Lucas lifted his head. His gaze collided with hers. The air in the bar was suddenly electric, like heat lightning shimmering on a distant horizon.
Lucas had always enjoyed women. He liked the way they felt—like the undersides of the snowy blossoms on his grandmother Fancy’s blue ribbon-winning camellias. He liked the way they smelled; liked the smooth, enticing, catlike way they moved; liked the way they tasted. The truth was, he flat-out loved everything about the opposite sex, and since women sensed that, mostly they liked him right back. Which had always suited him just fine.
He’d settled down a lot since his younger days, when he’d felt almost honor bound to live up to the old naval tradition of a girl in every port. But even so, he’d always enjoyed playing the field too much to narrow it down to a single woman.
Until now.
Her lips were full and pink and shiny from being licked. From nerves, Lucas guessed. Lord help him, he wanted to taste them. Actually, he wanted to taste the rest of her, too. Every lush, perfumed inch.
A little pool of silence settled over them.
Grace was the first to break it. “So,” she said, a bit breathlessly. “Do you think I’m in danger?”
They both were, Lucas thought. And suspected there wasn’t a thing either one of them could do about it. Fate, he decided, had one helluva quirky sense of humor.
“It’s obvious that whoever wrote them is a card-carrying paranoiac.” The letters professed a belief that Roberta Grace was spying on the letter writer and then stealing the writer’s real-life adventures to use in the Roberta Grace books. “I’d say it’s a distinct possibility.”
He rubbed his chin and vaguely wished he’d taken time to shave before driving back into the city. “Is there an outside chance that you could have accidentally written about some true instances in someone’s life?”
“That would be extremely difficult, since my books are set in eras ranging from medieval France to ninefieenth-century Arizona.”
“Well, that definitely narrows our suspect list,” Lucas decided.
“Oh? Why’s that?”
“It’s obvious that we’re dealing with a time traveler. So all we have to do is keep an eye out for the Way-Back Machine, and it should be a cinch to keep you safe.”
This time her smile was quick and warm and genuine. The thickly lashed eyes he knew he was going to be dreaming about tonight brightened.
“And to think people no longer believe in truth in advertising,” she murmured, wondering what the chances were of actually finding a genuine hero in the classifieds. She wasn’t certain that even she would get away with such a plot.
“We’ve never lost a client yet.” As he watched those ripe, petal pink lips curve in a faint smile, Lucas reminded himself that he’d never stooped to begging for anything in his life. And he wasn’t going to start now. Even if Grace Fairfield was the type of woman who made a man want to run out and buy some long-stemmed red roses and a gilt box of rich, melt-in-the-mouth chocolates.
“So,” he said, dragging this thoughts back to his reason for being at the hotel in the first place, “why don’t you tell me the names of all the people you think might have it in for you?”
“Oh, I can’t believe it could be anyone I know,” she said quickly. Too quickly. She fell silent and dragged her gaze over to the tropical fish tank along the far wall Although patience had never been his long suit, Lucas waited her out.
“I suppose Robert might qualify.”
“Robert?” The pieces instantly fell into place. “That’d be the other half of Roberta Grace?”
“That’s right. Robert Radcliffe is my former husband.”
Lucas made a mental note to check out Radcliffe ASAP. Any guy stupid enough to let this woman get away had to have more than a few screws loose. Enough to threaten murder? Lucas wondered. “So you two collaborated?”
“That’s what Robert has always told people.”
“Why do I hear a ‘but’ in that?”
“I have no idea.” She folded her arms across the front of her suit jacket. “You have to understand, Mr. Kincaid, that Robert is not exactly my favorite subject. Our divorce was, unfortunately, not without its unpleasant moments.” From the flame that flashed in her eyes, Lucas decided that was an understatement.
“And you have to understand, Ms. Fairfield, that if you want me to protect your life, we’re not going to be able to ignore past unpleasant moments. Since they tend to be the ones that lead to murder.”
“Point taken,” she said quietly. Grace rubbed at her temples, where a headache threatened. Murder. It was such an ugly word. She still couldn’t believe it.
“Have you called the police about these letters?”
“No. I’m a very private person. Besides, in the beginning Tina and I decided that they were merely some unstable reader letting off emotional steam.”
“And Tina would be…?”
“My agent, Tina Parker.” Who definitely wouldn’t be all that thrilled to discover her client had hired a bodyguard, Grace feared, but did not say. “Although I’ll admit to being uneasy about the letters, I agreed with her that there’s no point in creating headlines. After all, I’ve had enough negative publicity lately, what with the divorce, and the lawsuit—”
“Lawsuit?” Lucas hated going into a job without sufficient background.
Grace sighed. Talking about Robert was her least favorite thing to do. Even below root canals and swimsuit shopping. Deciding her bodyguard would hear the gossip anyway, Grace decided it was better if it come directly from her.
“Robert is suing me for the rights to the Roberta Grace name.” She lifted her chin in the same challenging way she’d done when Lucas had inadvertently insulted her books. “My novels are my sole intellectual property. I have no intention of relinquishing a name I’ve worked very hard to establish to a man who never wrote a single publishable sentence.”
There. She’d finally said it out loud. Grace wondered how she could have been so stupid to go along with the so-called collaboration lie in the first place.
“Makes sense to me.” Money was a popular motive for murder Strike two against the ex-husband, Lucas decided.
“So, what about Tina? Did she continue to represent your ex?”
“No. He has a new agent now. Actually, it’s our former editor.”
There was a lot more there, Lucas determined. A lot more Grace was going to have to tell him, no matter how upsetting it proved. After all, wounded pride was a lot less painful than murder.
CHAPTER 2
GRACE BRACED HERSELF for Lucas to ask for details about her divorce. She was also surprised that he hadn’t seen the stories that had taunted her for months whenever she’d been forced to wait in a supermarket line.
She’d gotten so accustomed to public humiliation that it hadn’t occurred to her that there’d actually be anyone left on the planet that hadn’t heard of her. Or read about her messy divorce, which had encouraged even the so-called establishment press to stoop to purple prose in their reporting. She couldn’t bear to think what would happen if the news of her threatening letters got out.
“There’s one thing I have to insist upon, if I hire you,” she said.
Lucas decided it was a moot point to mention that he was accustomed to being the one who’d choose whether or not he’d take a case. “Shoot.”
“I’d need you to be discreet. It’s been a horrendous year for me, both privately and professionally, and I’m in contract negotiations with a new management team. The last thing I need is for such an unsavory story to hit the tabloids.”
“Actually,” he corrected mildly, “the last thing you need is for some nutcase to try
to make good on those threats.”
His words caused ice to skim up her spine. She honestly hadn’t expected him to take the letters seriously. In fact, her main reason for having called the 800 number she’d seen in a newspaper this morning while flying out West was to have a security expert officially declare them harmless.
After all, she received all sorts of strange mail—some from prisoners, including an unsavory man on death row who, for some obscure reason Grace would never understand, claimed to identify with her heroes.
And then there’d been the ten-page letter scribbled on filler paper from someone alleging to have been in an outer-space harem with Grace. Supposedly, they’d both been beamed aboard a spaceship and taken to a woman less planet of sex-starved males who inexplicably resembled Tommy Lee Jones from the movie Men in Black. At the time, Grace had figured she should be so lucky.
“I still can’t believe the threats are legitimate,” she murmured, as if saying the words out loud could make them true.
Before Lucas could answer Grace’s latest denial, a woman in a red knit power suit and very high heels stopped beside the table.
“There you are!” she exclaimed to Grace. “I’ve been searching everywhere for you. Alice Vail insists on speak ing with you before the costume pageant and—”
“Who’s Alice Vail?” Lucas asked, breaking in.
She shot him an impatient look. “A reviewer for one of the romance-genre fan magazines.” Both her attitude and her voice were New York brisk. Her hair had been cut in an ultrashort, trendy style, and her lips, which were drawn into a suspicious line, had been painted the same scarlet as her suit. “She’s always been a supporter of romance novels, and consistently gives Roberta Grace rave reviews… and who are you?”
“Lucas Kincaid,” he answered, excusing her rudeness, since she was obviously a Yankee. “I’m—”
“An old friend.” Grace cut in quickly. She covered his hand with hers, linking their fingers together as she smiled at him across the table. “From college.” Her fingers tightened in silent warning; her expressive eyes pleaded with him to go along with her, then looked back at the woman. “This is Tina Parker, my agent. You’ve no idea what a surprise it was to discover Lucas was living here in San Francisco.”