The Night In Question

by Harper Allen

  “It’s not.” He met her glare steadily. “I brought you here today to reassure you.”

  He flicked a glance at his watch and then gestured to a nearby rock. “We’ve got at least an hour before they come into sight. Sit down, Julia.”

  What choice did she have? she thought in frustration, complying with ill grace and lowering herself stiffly onto one of the lichen-covered boulders that seemed to be a feature of the hilly, cliff-carved landscape. They were out here in the middle of nowhere—well, not nowhere, she admitted with grudging honesty, but certainly this wild little nature preserve on the edge of the Berkshires was a world away from Boston—and according to Max, soon Willa would appear, accompanied by Babs and a group of like-minded parents who made a habit of these Saturday-morning walks with their children. It wasn’t what she’d hoped for, but seeing her daughter, even at a distance and even for only a few seconds, overrode everything else.

  But she still felt as if she’d been tricked. Hunching her shoulders against the brisk breeze and wishing she had something more substantial than the flimsy windbreaker she was wearing, she lifted her chin at him.

  “Reassure me about what? And why couldn’t we have approached Babs directly? You were the agent in charge of this case, Max—why couldn’t you have contacted her and told her you no longer believed I was guilty?”

  He didn’t answer her immediately. Instead, he gave her a sharp glance, taking in the shivers she was trying to suppress, and the next minute he was stripping his sweatshirt over his head and tossing it her way. Julia caught it one-handedly and in turn narrowed her gaze at his T-shirt-clad torso.

  “Cut the Sir Galahad stuff, Ross,” she snapped. “If I’m not wearing appropriate clothing that’s my fault, not yours. I’m not taking your clothes.”

  About to toss the sweatshirt back to him, she saw a flash of expression cross his features. She paused in disconcertion, her grip tightening on the heavy cotton garment. Had that been embarrassment she’d seen appear and disappear so quickly in his eyes? she wondered incredulously. Had she made Max Ross, the king of no emotion at all, feel ill at ease?

  Suddenly she felt embarrassed herself—embarrassed, and ashamed of her churlish response. She’d been out of the normal world too long if this was the way she reacted to a simple kindness, she told herself edgily. She flushed, and jammed her arms into the oversize sleeves.

  “Sorry,” she muttered, thankful for the brief moment of invisibility as she dragged the top, still warm from his body, over her head. “I seem to have mislaid my party manners.”

  “I’m not much of a party guy, so don’t worry about it.” A corner of Max’s mouth lifted wryly. His smile, slight as it was, changed his whole countenance.

  Obviously it had been way too long since a lot of things, Julia told herself faintly. That had to be why her heart was suddenly crashing against her ribs like a jack-hammer and her knees felt suddenly so weak. So what if under the suits and shirts she’d always seen him in, the man had been hiding smoothly muscled biceps and that solid expanse of broad chest, now clearly delineated under the navy T-shirt? So what if in the instant his mouth had quirked up, those cat-green eyes of his had been momentarily veiled by dark lashes as thick as any girl’s, providing an erotic contrast to the hard planes and angles of that masculine, but in no way startlingly handsome, face? That still wasn’t any reason to gape at him as if she’d never seen a man before.

  “I may have been the agent in charge, but I don’t have any authority to change the deal your sister-in-law made.” The smile was gone, she saw with vague relief. “What I’m doing right now is grounds enough to get me dismissed from the Agency, but I figure the risk is worth it. I wanted you to reassure yourself that she’s all right—because after today, it might be a while before you see Willa again. Just having your conviction overturned wasn’t enough, Jules.”

  He’d called her that once before, she remembered. At the time she’d thought it was a slip of the tongue, but hearing him use the nickname again sparked a tiny flame of warmth inside her that had nothing to do with the sweatshirt he’d loaned her.

  She needed all the warmth she could get.

  “Because to the rest of the world I’m still The Porcelain Doll Bomber,” she said flatly. “Remind me again how we’re going to change that, Max.”

  She could hear the antagonism creeping into her voice once more, but she couldn’t seem to control it. “I never knew much about the business, but I know that while Kenneth was at the helm of Tenn-Chem he buried a lot of bodies. He used to tell me it was a dog-eat-dog world, but it looks as though in the end there was a faster and more ruthless dog out there than my husband. After all this time he’ll have covered his tracks completely. Face facts, Max—no one else will ever go to trial for those murders.”

  Even before she’d finished speaking she saw he was shaking his head in disagreement. “I know you always thought that Kenneth was killed by a business competitor or maybe someone he’d ruined in a takeover bid. I never bought that theory. Now I like it even less.”

  “But that’s just it—it doesn’t matter what you or I think.” Her tone sharpened further. “If I’m wrong, and my husband was killed for personal reasons, then whoever wanted him dead accomplished what he set out to do and I took the fall for it. We’re still left with nothing, unless you know something I don’t.”

  “I know that the case against you was damning enough to put you in prison.” Max’s tone took on the same edge as hers. He jammed his hands in the back pockets of the chinos he was wearing and looked down at her impatiently. “I know if you hadn’t been taken out of the picture, control of the Tennant business empire would have been in your hands until Willa reached the age of majority and took over the company as her father’s only heir. Instead, Barbara’s the one who’s holding it in trust for her—and Barbara’s disinterest in the business was always a given.”

  He shrugged tightly, the muscles of his shoulders shifting under the navy cotton. “You didn’t exactly marry into the Waltons. There’s no love lost between any of them, and Kenneth himself wrested control from his mother and shunted aside his brother Noel when he took over. I think there’s a good possibility that his murder was a family affair—and if I’m right, then Willa’s living on borrowed time.”

  Julia hardly realized she had risen to her feet. She took a swift step toward him, her hands clenched at her sides. “I asked you yesterday if you thought my daughter was in danger! Why didn’t you tell me what you suspected then, dammit?”

  She darted a glance across the valley to the little clearing by the fenced-off gorge, but even without the binoculars she could see that it was still peacefully empty. She looked back at Max.

  “Olivia Tennant’s her grandmother, for God’s sake! She has to be well aware of Willa’s whereabouts—and now you’re telling me you think it’s possible she arranged her own son’s death and might be contemplating a second murder? Or Willa’s uncle, Noel? If your theory’s right and he planted that bomb, what’s to stop him from eliminating his niece whenever he feels like it?” She bit off the question furiously and continued without giving him a chance to answer.

  “Last night I began to trust you, Max. Last night I started to let myself think there was still a spark of humanity in you that hadn’t been totally burned out by your past, that some small part of you wasn’t as mechanical and sealed-off as you wanted everyone to believe. I was wrong. You just see this as a case you screwed up, don’t you? All you care about is bringing in the real killer—and the fact that my daughter could be in danger right now doesn’t mean a thing to you! What the hell runs through those veins of yours, anyway—ice water?”

  “So I’m told.” As she began to turn away, Max’s hand shot out and grabbed her by the arm. He jerked her around to face him again, and her outraged gaze met his.

  “Get your freakin’ hands off me, Ross,” she hissed furiously. “I’m going back to my original plan, dammit—I’m going to get my daughter back myself and d
isappear with her. That’s the only way she’ll ever be safe. And if you’re thinking of blowing the whistle on me, don’t forget that the Agency is going to want to know how I located her so quickly. I know you well enough to guess you don’t want them learning that their own man led me to her.”

  “You don’t know the first thing about me, honey. You don’t even know the first thing about yourself, for God’s sake,” he ground out. “Number one, as long as Willa’s with Barbara she’s not in danger. If I thought there was any possibility of her being harmed I would have snatched her myself. And number two is this crap about you not liking being touched. You like it from me, all right. You like it a lot.”

  “Do I, Ross?” Without attempting to twist out of his grasp, Julia smiled humorlessly at him, her right hand going to the back pocket of her jeans to withdraw the object she’d purchased and carried since the day she’d been given back her freedom. In a blur of movement her hand came up. “Then how come I’ve got a knife to your throat, honey?” she whispered hoarsely.

  Max froze as she pressed the flat of the blade to the hard line of his jaw. His gaze, dark green and unreadable, slanted down at her.

  Two years ago the notion of carrying any kind of a weapon would never have occurred to her, but, along with everything else, she’d lost that complacent sense of security as well, Julia thought bitterly. Even before replacing the hated prison smock with the secondhand jeans and windbreaker, she’d approached a group of working girls standing in a cluster by an alleyway and had traded a few of her precious dollars for the switchblade she was now holding.

  “Hell, I don’t know, Jules.” Despite the stillness of his posture, there was a thread of wryness in his voice, and as her disbelieving gaze met his she saw that one-sided smile reappear at the corner of his mouth. “Maybe you think I like it rough. And maybe you’re right. Would you really do it?”

  “I think so, Ross.” Her throat felt suddenly dry, which was strange, since the hand holding the knife seemed just as suddenly damp with nerves. She tried to swallow and found she couldn’t. “But there’s only one way to find out for sure. You don’t want to push me that far.”

  “Like I said, you don’t know the first thing about me.” He bent his head toward her a fraction. She felt the unshaven prickle of his skin chafe slightly against the knuckles of her clenched hand. “I do want to find out for sure. I’m just that crazy.”

  Seemingly oblivious to the cold steel poised so dangerously near to the tanned column of his throat, slowly he lessened the distance between them until she could feel the warmth of his breath on her own parted lips, see her own startled gaze reflected in the brilliant green of those darkly lashed eyes.

  She’d read him wrong right from the start, Julia thought incredulously. The emotionless demeanor, the blandly conservative suits and ties he usually wore, the impassive and by-the-book manner that she remembered from the investigation and the trial—they were all an act.

  The man was a loaded gun. And for some reason, being around her switched off his safety mechanism.

  “You’re not a straight arrow at all, are you?” Even to her own ears her voice sounded tremulous with shock. “You let everybody think you are, but you’re really a damn cowboy. How the hell have you managed to get away with it?”

  “Did I get away with it?” There was a touch of real curiosity in his tone. “I always figured you saw through me just a little, Jules. After all, you’re the one who kept bringing up the subject of fantasies.”

  There was no space between them at all now. Her grip tightened convulsively on the weapon in her hand even as his lips brushed against hers.

  He was going to go through with it, she thought disjointedly. She held all the cards and he knew it, and still the man was willing to go through with this. He was crazy.

  “You’re taking one hell of a chance, Agent Ross.” The ball of her thumb was pressed firmly against the pulse-point of his neck, and she felt his heartbeat begin to speed up. “Maybe your ideas about me are just as wrong as mine were about you. Are you so sure you want to put them to the test?”

  “You do what you have to do, Julia.” His words were whispered against her parted lips, and as he spoke his lashes drifted completely down, cutting off that electric gaze. “I won’t stop you.”

  He was handing the situation over to her, she thought with a surge of anger. After pushing the envelope as far as he could, now he was leaving it up to her to take the last step—and he wasn’t even giving her the opportunity to let him see the fury in her eyes.

  To hell with him, Julia thought tightly. She let her own lashes sweep down, and opened her mouth fully against his.

  Instantly she felt his tongue enter her, and just as instantaneously a white-hot flame tore through her, racing along every last nerve ending in her body like a runaway bolt of lightning. His mouth covered hers and he went deeper, as if he was deliberately discarding whatever vestige of self-regulation he’d been holding on to until now.

  He wasn’t one of the good guys. Even when they’d been on opposite sides of the fence, even when she’d told herself he was the enemy, she’d thought of him as being on the side of law and order, but at some basic level Max Ross stood for the exact opposite. Law and order? Julia thought faintly. Anarchy and disorder were more like it. The man was insane. The situation was insane. Worst of all, she was going crazy here too.

  She’d told herself it had been too long. That wasn’t strictly true. She’d never had anything like this before.

  She could taste him—taste his inner lip, taste his tongue, taste the slightly salty tang of his skin. She had the irresponsible impulse to bite him, and a part of her that she hadn’t even known existed urged her to act on the impulse.

  She nipped his lower lip and felt the sudden shudder, instantly stilled, that ran through him. He spoke without taking his mouth from hers.

  “Drop the knife, Jules. You’re dangerous enough without it.”

  Her eyes flew open in consternation at his ironic reminder. Appalled, she started to pull away from him, but before she could, he reached up with his left hand and uncurled her fingers. She heard a tiny metallic clink as metal struck rock at their feet.

  “Remember what a goddamn gentleman I was last night?”

  His voice was barely audible. Casting her gaze up through her lashes, Julia saw that his eyes were still closed. She nodded anyway, the movement little more than an awkward jerk of her head. He exhaled.

  “I came into the spare room after you’d fallen asleep. I stood in the doorway for about an hour, just watching you. Then I went to my own bed and—” He stopped. His eyes opened and met hers calmly. “Anyway, this morning I decided that from now on I was going to keep to the straight and narrow where you were concerned. I don’t think it’s working, so screw that plan.”

  His left hand was still loosely clasped around her fingers. He brought his right palm up and traced the curve of her lower lip with the side of his thumb before sliding his open hand along her cheekbone to her temple.

  It was time to say something, Julia thought stupidly. It was time to say something—anything—to break up this irrational feeling of lassitude that seemed to be gripping her. His fingers slid into her hair. She caught her breath and closed her eyes, and immediately it was as if she was standing in the middle of a field on the Fourth of July, the black velvet of a summer night lapping against her skin, a skein of sparks from the fireworks directly above her falling and sizzling onto her lips, her eyelids, her breasts. His voice, lower and rougher than a whisper, was in her ear.

  “You can have me any way you want, Jules. You can have me any way you want, anytime you want, and you can do any damn thing you want to do to me. Every dark dream that ever went through your sleep, everything you never dared demand from anyone before, I’ll give to you.” He released her hand, and she felt his fingertips touch her lips. “Like you said, honey, I’m not a straight arrow. I can drive you out of your mind, and you can bring me to my knees. All you hav
e to do is say the word.”

  With no warning at all his mouth was on hers, hard and urgent, and this time it wasn’t like lightning at all. She felt him inside her, felt slow fire surging through her limbs, her thighs, the pit of her stomach. He could make her dissolve with desire, she thought hazily—that stroking tongue, those strong hands, that husky voice. And all he’d done so far was kiss her. What would it be like to have that sure mouth everywhere on her body, feel those hands around her hips maneuvering her into any position she asked for, hear that sex-roughened murmur beside her in the darkness putting into erotic words every secret fantasy she’d ever forbidden herself to think about?

  You can find out what it would be like. You can find out anytime you want. The small voice inside her head was compellingly persuasive. Who knows why or how, but for some reason the man’s yours whenever you want to take him. It could be as soon as tonight, if that’s what you—

  His mouth left hers. His hands slid down to her shoulders. Startled, she opened her eyes to meet his.

  At first glance he looked the same as he always did. Taking in the expressionless features, the rigidly motionless posture of the man facing her, Julia felt as if she had just been doused with a bucket of cold water. Then his gaze wavered.

  All of a sudden she could see the differences. Under the tan of his cheekbones ran a faint ridge of color. Those dark eyes were still glazed and slightly unfocused. Beneath the thin cotton of the T-shirt his chest rose and fell unsteadily, and his bottom lip was swollen.

  “Yeah, Jules, that’s right.” His voice held a lingering huskiness. “With me what you see isn’t necessarily what you get. You and I are going to have to work together to find out who really planted that bomb on your husband’s plane, and you might start thinking that the man in the suit and tie standing beside you asking questions of strangers and taking notes is the real Max Ross. I don’t give a damn if everyone else thinks that. But I want you to know that whatever I’m saying or doing at any given moment, underneath it all is the man you saw just now, waiting for one word from you.”