Forbidden Dreams
Page 14
She snorted in a very genteel and ladylike manner. “The idea that I’d sign over anything without a great deal more than the say-so of one charming man! I told him we’d discuss it after the holiday season, that business, even the hotel business, could wait until I’d properly celebrated the birth of Jesus.”
Jase laughed aloud, and she turned to look at him. “What do you want me to do, young man?” she asked briskly. “And shouldn’t the Mounties be in on this? I’m sure your FBI has no jurisdiction in Canada.”
“No, Mrs. Landry. It doesn’t. But what Shell forgot to tell you is that I’m on leave of absence from the FBI, not carrying a badge. My being here is strictly unofficial.”
She raised her elegant eyebrows again, and Jase had a glimpse of what Shell might look like in fifty years. He wasted a moment regretting that he would not be around to see her then, then told himself he had no time for regrets. He had to live for the hour, the day, and snatch what happiness he could along the way.
“Indeed?” Evelyn’s manner frosted up again. “Then if this is not an official investigation, why are we having this discussion?” She reached for the telephone. “If what you say is true, then the authorities must be brought in at once.”
“Please.” His single word stayed her hand. “I have the backing of my superiors, and I promise you, if and when I have enough evidence to show the RCMP, assuming a crime has been committed in this country, they will have it. I’m doing this on my own because my grandmother was the one who took that photograph in Boston and wrote the name Martin Francis on the back of it.”
He paused to control his voice, then added, “She took it a few months before he relieved her of her life’s savings and left her to die alone.”
“Ahh …” Understanding flooded Evelyn’s face. “I see. I’m very sorry, er, Jase. And of course I’ll help.”
“Thank you. But I want it clearly understood right up front that if things go wrong, you risk losing a good deal of money. As long as this is not an official investigation, I can make no guarantees.”
He smiled at Shell. “Even though your granddaughter seems to think of me as an invincible hero.”
“That,” Evelyn said, “is the way it should be.” She patted Shell’s hand again, then leaned forward. “All right, Jase. Where do we start? How do we perform this … I believe it’s called a ‘sting’?”
Jase stood, then bent down and kissed her on the cheek. “Mrs. Landry, you are a hero.”
“Of course I am, young man. I only hope my acting is as good as Sterling’s has been.” For just a moment she faltered and looked elderly, frail, and stricken. I did truly believe he—” She swallowed. “Cared for me.”
Shell hugged her tightly. There were no words of comfort she could give. She was only grateful that Jase had come before her grandmother was put through the same kind of hurt and humiliation his had suffered.
It was good to have a hero on their side.
Chapter Ten
“I HAVE NEVER HAD a better New Year’s Eve in my life,” Jase said as he kissed Lil on the cheek. “Or Christmas, for that matter, even if Shell burned the turkey to a crisp and had lumps in both the mashed potatoes and the gravy.”
“You lie!” Nola said. “I, myself, taught that girl to cook and her dinner was exquisite.”
“Well, I didn’t want her getting a swelled head over it.”
Lilianne laughed. “I think you have a dizzy head from drinking at least half that case of wine you brought tonight.”
“You’re probably right. A lot of things, like your daughter, for instance, have been going to my head lately. But now I think we should wander off back to her house.” It was half-past midnight, thirty minutes into the new year, and he was stuffed with good food, high on great conversation, and hoarse from singing. “Thank you, all of you, for letting me be part of your family, and for the most wonderful holiday season I’ve ever spent.” He included Shell, Kathleen, Nola—and even Ned—in his smile as he slid an arm around Shell’s shoulders.
“It’s been a good day for me too,” Lil said, reluctantly letting Kathleen help her off the piano bench and into her chair. Then, in a flurry of hugs, kisses, and “good-nights,” he and Shell were out of the house and on the path, the flashlight beam bouncing between them as they ran through the silver rain toward her cabin.
It held that same wonderful, welcoming warmth Jase had learned to associate with Shell’s home. Inside, he swept her into his arms and hummed one of the love songs they’d been singing with Lil and Kathleen. Dipping and swaying, drunk on wine and joy, they danced around the kitchen. When Skeena jealously thrust her head between them, they fell, laughing, onto a chair never meant to hold more than one.
Jase adjusted Shell on his lap, shoved the dog’s wet, cold nose away, and concentrated on wishing Shell a thorough happy New Year. “Happy New Year, ear,” he said, and kissed that. “Happy New Year, nose.” He slid her down until she lay across his legs and undid her jacket, then her blouse. “Oh, what have we here? Happy … Happy … Happy New Year, nipples, and ribs, and tummy, and … skirt? I don’t want to wish your skirt a happy New Year,” he complained. “I want to—”
“I want to go to bed,” she interrupted in an urgent whisper. Pulling his head away from her belly, she sat up, then held him still for her kisses, angling her mouth across his, speaking against his lips. “I more than want to go to bed. I need to, Jase.”
His eyes filled with mirth. “With me?”
“Of course with you!” She giggled. “What did you think I meant, alone? I’ve forgotten what it’s like to sleep alone.”
“Complaining?”
“Never.” She nestled close. She hadn’t been to bed alone in nearly two weeks. And if she had her way, she’d never go to bed without Jase at her side for as long as she lived.
“Oh, well. If I have to, I have to.” He picked her up and carried her to her room, kicking the door shut on the dog who would have joined them.
“You mean ‘A man’s gotta do,’ etc.?”
He let out a long-suffering sigh. “Being a man isn’t easy, you know. Especially with you around. You deliberately make things hard for me.”
She giggled again and made things harder.
He looked into her eyes, and she saw something so deep and dark and mysterious, it half frightened her. “I love you, Shell.” He set her down on the bed and knelt beside her.
“I love you, Jase.”
“I want to do things to you that have never been done before, make you feel things you’ve never even dreamed you could feel, show you ecstasy you never imagined existed.”
“You have done all that.”
“But there’s more. I’m sure of it. I think, together, we can find it.”
She lay back and stretched her arms high over her head. “Show me, then,” she said. “Ah … yes. Yes!”
“And you show me,” he said in that special low growl of his that told her he was deeply aroused. “Show me the way to heaven.”
She did.
An hour later Shell stretched again, languidly, and smiled at him. “I believe you.”
He followed the curve of her hipbone with a finger, then traced a long, circuitous route to the point of her jaw. “About what?”
“That you love me.”
His nose wrinkled. “Oh, that.” He shrugged, then bent to kiss the last place his finger had touched.
“Shell?” He sat back and looked at her, his face too serious.
“Yes?”
“That’s what I want to say.”
She blinked. “What do you want to say?”
“Yes.”
“Jase?” She shook her head, searching his eyes for any glint of humor that might be lurking there. There was none that she could see. “Is this conversation supposed to make sense?”
“Yes.”
“You already said that.”
A tiny smile played at the corners of his mouth. “Then you’re supposed to say ‘Thank you.’ ”
“For saying yes.”
She was silent for a minute. “I seem to have forgotten the question.”
“No wonder. You asked it so long ago. Twenty-three-and-a-half years ago, to be exact.”
She went very still, then hitched herself up against the headboard and folded her arms on her knees. “What question, to be exact?”
“Well, maybe it was more of a statement than a question. You said, ‘When we’re all grown up, we’ll get married, and you can kiss me, and we’ll have lots of babies.’ I’m simply agreeing with your suggestion. A little late, maybe, but very, very sincerely.”
She drew in a breath, but it didn’t help. She still felt light-headed, floating. She let it out and tried another one. Maybe the first one had missed the oxygen somehow. It hadn’t. Maybe there was no more oxygen in the room. “Jase?”
“Marry me, Shell. Have my babies. Make a home for me. With me.”
She wanted to weep, but she wouldn’t. She wanted to believe him, believe he’d still feel this way a week from now, a month, a year, but she couldn’t. “You’re feeling sentimental, that’s all,” she said gently, sadly. “Christmas trees, prettily wrapped presents, your stocking.”
Lil had filled a stocking for him, and he’d been more than slightly touched by the kindness. He hadn’t had a Christmas stocking since he was five years old, he’d told them. Lil and Shell had both cried over that. Even Kathleen’s nose had turned red, and she’d rushed to the kitchen to do something to the turkey.
“New Year’s Eve makes people mourn the passing of the season,” Shell said, after Jase had shaken his head to each of her suggestions.
“This,” he reminded her, “is New Year’s Day.”
“But …” She searched his eyes. “Those fatherless children you don’t want weeping over your grave. What about them, Jase?”
He brushed her hair back from her face. “I want to see them grow up. A tall, thin blond boy who’ll look like your father. A little girl who’ll look just like you. Maybe two or three of those. And another, who looks like me. A boy who might resemble your mother, but in a masculine way. Maybe a couple who’d have your grandmother’s courage, or one or two with the characteristics of—”
“Exactly how many do you want hanging over your grave? That sounds like about a dozen to me.”
“Oh. Too many? But we’d have so much fun making them. And as for the grave scene, I’ve scratched it. Like I said, I want to watch our children grow up. I can make my leave of absence permanent, Shell.”
She stared at him. “And do what? Write nasty little stories for a nasty little newspaper, so that nasty, small-minded people can get their jollies reading them?” She heard the shrillness in her tone and hated it, but she hated more the idea of his doing that. He had to know. If he really wanted to marry her, he had to know how she felt about that.
Oh, dear God. He would also have to know why. She clamped a hand over her mouth.
“I’ll only write nasty stories about nasty people, never about nice ones.” His smile told her he was teasing. He nuzzled her hand away from her mouth with his chin and planted a loud, wet kiss on her lips. “Please, Shell. What I do and where I do it is immaterial as long as I can have you in my life.”
“Your column, though. It may have started out as a cover for your other activities, but you’ve made a success out of it, haven’t you? You won’t want to give it up, not if you give up the FBI too.”
He sat back from her. “I’m telling you,” he said with exaggerated patience, “it doesn’t matter what I do. I can wash cars, or wait tables, or dung out chicken coops. I don’t have to work for a newspaper if it bothers you. I love you. I want to grow old beside you. I want those babies you promised me all those years ago. And I want you. Not just for a long time. I’m looking for something pretty damned close to forever. I’m saying yes, Shell. Now, please, please, say what you have to say.”
She pulled in a tremulous breath, hesitated, then said, “Thank you.”
Jase let out a whoop that made Skeena bark excitedly right outside the door, then he hauled Shell back down flat on the bed.
“Jase, don’t,” she said. “There’s so much we have to talk about.”
He grinned. “Oh, right! There is one very important thing. I will never, ever, as long as I live, agree to eat a spaghetti-sauce sandwich.”
She pretended a huff. “Sorry. You’ll learn to like them or it’s no deal.”
He laughed and kissed her with dizzying intensity.
“Jase, please, wait. We have to be serious. We need to talk.”
“I don’t want to wait. And I’m very serious. It’s just that I don’t want to talk. We can spend our golden years doing that, and watching Wheel of Fortune if you like, but right now what we have to do is make love. Make babies.”
She laughed and clung to him. He was right. Now was not the time for talk. Now was the time for love. Details could be sorted out later.
“You look pretty busy, Madame Proprietor,” Jase said, leaning in the doorway of Shell’s back room. She looked up from the box of books she was unpacking and tried to leap to her feet and fly into his arms. Just seeing him after a three-day separation, though, turned her weak and limp with need, a need that couldn’t be assuaged there in her store.
She remained crouched where she was, knowing her face was a complete giveaway of her feelings anyhow. Jase had told her repeatedly over the past three weeks that she couldn’t hide her love. She didn’t see any reason to try.
“How’s Grandma?” she asked, when the strength finally returned to her legs and she could stand. She lifted the box to a table and stood looking at the man she loved. The smile she couldn’t contain beamed forth. “Oh, Jase, I’m so glad to see you! I wasn’t expecting you until the five-thirty ferry.”
“I missed you so bad I caught the three-thirty, and Grandma’s fine.” He came fully into the room and shut the door, then perched one hip on the corner of her desk. His smile faded.
‘We got a tape of Sterling discussing his ‘case’ with Evelyn. Shell, she’s a phenomenal actress. No one would ever guess that she knew he was up to no good, or that she wasn’t just as enamored of him as she was before Christmas. She gave him those phony bearer bonds your dad prepared—worth several million. As soon as he tries to leave the country with them, or cash them in, we’ll have him dead to rights. Your dad has customs officers watching for him at every border point Sterling could conceivably use, and every major financial institution in both countries is on the alert.”
“Good.” Her voice shook with passion. “I want to see him go to jail for the rest of his natural life.”
Jase smiled crookedly. “Your grandmother and I have agreed that hanging would be appropriate.”
“Yes, well, we have to take what the law provides.”
He nodded, but not happily. “You and Evelyn were right, you know. It was a good move to bring Elwin in on this. He and Sondra are being wonderfully supportive of her.”
“Oh, Jase, I should be there too. Are you sure she’s all right?”
“She’s more angry than sad now, Shell. And she’s one very tough lady. You know that. I’ve promised her that we’ll come and visit her in a few weeks, after she goes back to Palm Springs. Call her, why don’t you? Talk to her for a minute or two, put your mind at rest.”
“But … what if Sterling’s there? It might be hard for her to talk normally.”
“Yeah. That’s true. And speaking of hard …” He grinned. “Can we get out of here soon and go home?”
Shell’s insides rippled, and she glanced at her watch. “Soon. It’s almost closing time. I just want to finish unpacking this box and getting the books onto the shelves.” As she spoke, she continued to take books out. She glanced at their jackets, dusted them off, and set them on the cart beside her. “It’s an order that should have been here before Christmas but got held u
p somewhere,” she said as she found the invoice and began checking off titles.
“It’s really frustrating when that happens,” she went on, “because sales are never as brisk in January and Februa—” She broke off and stared at the back cover of a book as she lifted it from the box. Then she looked up at Jase, her face drained of color, her lips parted on the word she hadn’t completed.
“Jase …?” She glanced down at the jacket photo, back at him, and repeated his name. “Jase.”
He knew heart-break when he saw it happening right before him.”
Her eyes burned into his. “Jason Calhoun,” she said. “When Angels Fall.” She read aloud the copy above his picture. “Shocking expose by FBI agent. A must-read for anyone who wants the down-and-dirty on our corrupt court system. Calhoun judges the judges; finds more wrongdoing in court than out.” She stared at him. “Jase! You wrote this—this trash? This slime?” He reached for her as her face crumpled, but she shoved him away with furious strength.
“That picture!” She slapped her hand over it, hiding it from her sight. “That was it! That was why I associated your face with a camera, but it was a promotional photograph I remembered, not you, not the boy I knew. The jacket picture—God! Do you think I’d have ordered this book for general sale? To put on my shelves? It’s a special order for a customer. I had no idea what it was all about or what kind of tripe that customer wants to read. I’ll tell him to get it elsewh—”
“Shell, listen to me!”
“No!” she shouted. “I don’t want to hear anything you have to say! You’re a liar, Jase! A cheat! You know how I feel about this kind of muck! Of course that’s why you didn’t tell me. Oh, sure you don’t mind quitting the FBI. You can always find something else to do. I don’t like your column? You’ll quit that too? No problem, right?”
She ran an agitated hand through her hair and sobbed once, harshly. “Why would there be a problem when you have something so much better to turn to, some way to earn so much more money with your poison, your filth, your lies?”
She slammed the book down hard on the table. “This way you can destroy lives and reputations on a much bigger scale! Right, Jase? Right? Eat people for breakfast wholesale! Run their lives through the wringer of your printing presses, squeezing out every little detail that might titillate the jaded interest of every small-minded, sleaze-loving cretin in the Free World! Why limit your audience to southern California? Go national! International! Make a really big splash in the sewer! Right?”