Passion and Scandal

by Candace Schuler

  She strolled on toward Flynn's ahead of him, her hips swaying lazily as she silently fired another salvo in their delicious little battle of the sexes.

  "Good God Almighty, woman," she heard him rasp hoarsely, and she knew she'd hit her mark.

  The back of the dress was cut past discretion, coming to a V just below the curve of her waist. Her black stockings were seamed. The poor sap didn't have a chance.

  "I'll get even with you for this," he growled, his voice laced with amused frustration.

  Willow laughed and kept on walking. "You're certainly welcome to try," she taunted.

  * * *

  Flynn's was a nice little neighborhood bar, with a black-and-white art-decoish decor that made it elegant and cozy at the same time. Vintage posters from old Errol Flynn movies decorated the walls, interspersed with glossy publicity photos of some of the biggest stars from Hollywood's Golden Era. Waitresses clad in modified, skirted tuxedos with jaunty red bow ties moved deftly through the noisy, cheerful crowd, dispensing drinks, high-calorie munchies, and the occasional wisecrack. Happy Hour was in full swing.

  Willow realized immediately that she was overdressed—or underdressed, depending on how you looked at it—for the Friday-night after-work crowd. Two yuppie business types at a nearby table stopped talking to stare at her exposed cleavage, one of the waitresses gave her a sliding sideways glance, and a distinguished, extremely well-dressed man with a small brown mustache raised his wineglass and winked appreciatively.

  Willow had a moment of uneasiness at the attention she was attracting, wondering if there was a way to make a graceful retreat, when she heard a threatening growl rumble in her ear.

  "Here, put this on, dammit," Steve said, draping her jacket around her from behind.

  The man with the wine blanched and looked away, the two yuppies abruptly returned to their conversation. Willow turned her head, looking over her shoulder to see what Steve had done to cause the men's sudden disinterest in her charms.

  He was standing behind her with his hands on her shoulders, like an alpha wolf standing guard over a juicy little rabbit, warning any and all comers he wouldn't hesitate to tear them apart if they dared to challenge his right to it. The look in his eyes sent shivers of delicious fear and excitement racing down Willow's spine.

  She hadn't counted on arousing his jealousy; she hadn't even considered it as an option when she started her teasing little game. She should have, she realized now. Steve Hart was all man, and men were notoriously territorial by nature. She forgot all about being overdressed for the occasion and began wondering just how far she could exploit this unlooked-for bonus without taking it too far and getting herself—or anyone else—into serious trouble.

  "Don't even think about it," Steve said, bending his head to whisper the words into her ear. "You wouldn't like it if one of these slobbering Romeos got hurt because you were trying to bring me to heel." He turned her around to face him. "You want to yank on my chain a little more, fine. But this is between you and me, sweetheart. Let's keep it that way."

  He bent down and pressed a hard, possessive kiss on her astonished mouth, then whirled her around again and, hands firmly on her shoulders, headed her through the Happy Hour crowd toward the bar.

  "Which one of you is Tim?" he asked, aiming his question at the two bartenders working behind the long polished bar.

  "That'd be me," answered the one dispensing beer into a frosted pilsner glass. He took a moment to set the drink down on a napkin in front of his customer before turning his attention to Steve. "What can I do for you?"

  "I'm supposed to be meeting a man by the name of Jack Shannon in here tonight. He said you could point him out for me."

  "Sure thing," Tim said easily, making a credible effort not to let his gaze stray toward Willow's enticing cleavage. "He's sitting right over there, in that first booth, with his wife, Faith."

  "Thanks." Steve reached over Willow's shoulder and laid a couple of bills on the bar. "Have somebody bring a couple of drinks over to the table, would you please. I'll have a beer—whatever you have on tap. Willow?"

  "Tequila shooter," Willow said, just to annoy him. She smiled at the bartender as if he were the best-looking man she'd ever seen in her life. "You can keep them coming until I start to dance on the tables."

  Steve slid his hand from her shoulder to the back of her neck and squeezed gently. "Just bring her a margarita," he said to the bartender.

  "Frozen. No salt," Willow added as he steered her away from the bar with the hand on the back of her neck.

  "You can let go of me any time now," she snapped at him as they threaded their way through the crowd to the booths along the wall.

  "Are you going to behave yourself?"

  "Define behave," she retorted.

  "Willow..." he said warningly and tightened his hand.

  "All right, all right. No need to get rough." She gave an exaggerated wince, as if he had actually hurt her when, in truth, he hadn't hurt her at all. "I'll behave."

  He let go of her neck.

  "But only because I wouldn't want to be responsible for a bar brawl," she added, shooting him a venomous glare to show him she wasn't completely cowed.

  He grinned at her. "God, you're a piece of work," he said admiringly.

  Willow bent her head, refusing to let him see her smile, and dug into her evening bag. "Here," she said and handed him a tissue. "Wipe your mouth off. You've got lipstick all over it."

  * * *

  Jack Shannon was a good twenty years older than his wife. Faith was about Willow's age, with pale brown hair that fell to her shoulders in a soft wave, big hazel eyes, and a face as fresh and innocent as an angel's. It was a situation that would normally have made Willow think snidely of middle-aged men desperately trying to hang on to their youth, except that there was nothing desperate or middle-aged about Jack Shannon. He could very easily have been the mercenary Mueller had accused him of being. As lean and rangy as a hungry panther, with a panther's watchful eyes and coiled readiness, he looked as if he were ready to spring into explosive action at the first sign of danger. Willow had no trouble at all picturing him slogging through a South American jungle or slinking across a foreign desert with an Uzi slung over his shoulder, recovered government secrets in his pack and an enemy camp exploding in the darkness behind him... except when he looked at his lovely young wife and every bit of hardness and suspicion faded from his eyes.

  "Yes, I remember her," he said, looking down at the photographs Steve had spread out on the table. "These pictures were taken the day she and her roommate moved in. April, I think it was. The four of us helped them get their stuff up to the third floor and then we all sat around the courtyard and had a couple of beers."

  "Did she date your brother?" Steve asked.

  "Maybe." Jack shrugged. "I kind of had the impression she and Ethan had something going, though. I remember him talking about her when she got that part on 'As Time Goes By'—about what a great-looking babe he thought she was and all—and I seem to recall that he was the one responsible for her moving into the Wilshire Arms in the first place. They went out at least a couple of times that I know of. Ethan made sure everybody knew he was going out with her. But..." He shook his head. "I don't know. I think she dated Eric, too, although I don't know how serious it was. The two of us were pretty much on the outs that summer, hardly on speaking terms most of the time, so we didn't share a lot of brotherly confidences. If we had, maybe I could have prevented what happened."

  Faith Shannon laid her hand over her husband's clenched fist. He immediately turned his hand, palm up on the table, and twined his fingers with hers.

  "We argued that night," Jack went on. "It was a stupid argument and I ended up storming out in a rage. I never saw my brother alive again."

  "I'm sorry," Willow said, touched by the depths of suffering in his dark eyes. "I wouldn't be asking these questions if it wasn't important."

  "Yeah, well... water under the bridge and all that,"
he said, brushing aside her concern. "What's done is done."

  "How about Zeke Blackstone?" Steve asked.

  "You mean, did he date her? No, I don't think so. He was pretty heavily involved with Ariel Cameron back then. They were shooting a movie together."

  "They recently got remarried, didn't they?" Willow asked.

  "Yeah." Jack grinned. "Two weeks after their daughter's wedding they eloped to Las Vegas like a couple of kids."

  "Do you know why they got divorced in the first place?" Steve asked.

  Jack lifted an eloquent eyebrow. "You'd have to ask Zeke about that."

  "I intend to," Steve said. "Did you date Donna Ryan?"

  "She was way out of my league," Jack said easily. "A gorgeous actress, a good three or four years older than me. I wouldn't have presumed."

  "So you didn't date her, then?" Steve insisted, wanting a straight yes-or-no answer.

  Jack gave him a look that said he didn't like to be pushed. Steve gave him a look that said he'd keep right on pushing until he got what he wanted.

  "No," Jack said flatly. "I didn't date her."

  Steve nodded, satisfied with that. "What about the card?" he asked. "Do you recognize the handwriting?"

  Jack shook his head. "I wish I could be more helpful but, no, I don't. I could be Eric's but it's been twenty-five years since I've seen anything my brother's written."

  "What about that box of stuff Mr. Mueller had in the basement?" Faith Shannon said in her soft Georgia drawl. "The one he gave you when you moved back into the Wilshire Arms? Weren't there some notes and pictures and things of his in there with the script?"

  "Yes, I think there were," Jack said, nodding his head in agreement. "I'd forgotten about that box. I think it probably got put in storage with a lot of other stuff when we moved out of the apartment."

  "Would it be all right... Could we look through it?" Willow asked eagerly.

  "I'd have to find it for you first, but sure. You're welcome to look through it if you think it might help."

  "Anything might help," Steve said.

  Jack slipped two fingers into the pocket of his khaki shirt and pulled out a card. "That's got both my home number and my desk at the Times on it," he said as he handed it across the table. "Give me a call and we'll set something up."

  "The Los Angeles Times?" Willow said. "You're a reporter, then, not a..." Her voice trailed off as she realized what she was about to say.

  Jack snorted. "Did Mueller give you that fairy tale about me being a mercenary?"

  "He did mention it," Willow admitted.

  "Jack was never a mercenary," Faith said loyally, jumping in to set the record straight before her husband could do it himself. "He was a foreign correspondent for the paper. He covers the city beat now," she added proudly.

  "Mueller's a few bricks short of a full load," Jack said as he lifted his wife's hand to his lips for a quick kiss. "Always has been." He quirked a brow at his two questioners. "Did he tell you the story about the legend of Wilshire Arms?"

  "In gory detail." Willow shivered. "He seemed to delight in making it sound as gruesome as possible."

  "Oh, he does," Jack assured her. "I think he resents never having seen the lady himself, so he dwells on the horror stories instead of the good things that have happened to people."

  "Are you saying you've seen her?" Steve asked, his tone clearly skeptical.

  "It's not something I like to admit in public but, yeah," Jack said. A corner of his mouth turned up in a sheepish smile. "I've seen her." He slanted a glance at his wife, who smiled lovingly back. "We both have."

  Steve shook his head in disbelief. "And you a reporter for the Times," he scoffed.

  "'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio/Than are dreamt of in your philosophy,'" Jack quoted with a shrug. "I can't explain what we saw, or why, or how, but I know we saw it."

  Steve looked back and forth between the two of them, taking in the twin expressions of absolute conviction. "You're not kidding, are you? You both really think you saw a ghost."

  "We saw something, Mr. Hart," Faith Shannon said, rushing to her husband's defense like Beauty defending the Beast, "and it changed our lives. Personally, I don't care whether it was a ghost, a heavenly spirit, or an optical illusion. And I don't care what anyone else thinks about it, either," she said tartly, her expression daring him to make something of it.

  "Well, I guess that puts me in my place," Steve said with a grin. "I didn't mean to question your veracity," he apologized.

  "Only our common sense, hmm?" Faith quipped, letting him know he was forgiven.

  Jack reached out and gathered up the pictures, then paused to study them one more time. "I'd like to be able to say I see a strong resemblance but..." He shook his head. "Your hair is the same color Eric's was," he offered.

  "The same color yours is," interjected his wife.

  "The same color as ten other people in this bar," the ever pragmatic Steve pointed out.

  Jack handed the pictures to Willow. "If you'd like, I'd be willing to take a blood test."

  "A blood test?" Willow said, startled. "You mean, like DNA? To prove conclusively that you're not my father?"

  "To find out if I might be your uncle."

  Willow looked at Steve. "Is that possible?" she asked, hope flaring in her eyes. "Are those tests sophisticated enough to prove that kind of relationship?"

  "It's possible, I guess," Steve admitted reluctantly, unwilling to raise her hopes before he knew for sure. "I'd have to make a few calls to find out."

  "I've already done quite a bit of research on it," Jack told them. "Because of the Simpson trial," he added when Steve shot him a suspicious look over the table.

  "With the technology available today it would be possible for a DNA test to prove, with nearly one hundred percent accuracy, that we aren't related. On the other hand, it could tell us with eighty percent probability if we are." He looked into Willow's eyes. "I'm willing to accept those odds, if you are."

  Chapter 6

  Willow was quiet when they left Flynn's, mulling over what little Jack Shannon had been able to tell them about the possible identity of her father. They were no closer to an answer than they'd been before but she smiled as she settled into the bucket seat of the Mustang, warmed by Jack Shannon's offer to take a blood test. He seemed to want to find out the truth about her paternity nearly as badly as she did.

  "Thinking up more ways to torment me?" Steve asked, giving her a wry, amused glance as he slid behind the wheel of the car.

  Willow hadn't been thinking anything of the kind. She'd forgotten all about their private battle of the sexes the minute they sat down across the table from Jack and Faith Shannon—but it only took that one challenging sidelong glance to remind her that she'd meant to bring Steve Hart to his knees.

  She turned toward him, her legs crossed, her head tilted back against the white leather seat, a seductive smile curving her red lips, and applied herself to the project with renewed enthusiasm.

  * * *

  "Would you like to kiss me good-night?" she murmured seductively when, at last, they stood in front of the door to her hotel room.

  Steve shook his head. "I don't think that would be such a good idea," he said with real regret edging the amusement in his voice.

  Willow lifted her hand and slowly ran the edge of her tiny evening purse down the middle of his broad chest. "Afraid you won't be able to control yourself?" she challenged him.

  "Afraid I won't be able to control you," he countered with a grin, and grabbed her wrist, stopping her descending hand before it reached his belt buckle.

  They'd been playing this game all night, through dinner at the little Mexican hole-in-the-wall restaurant he'd taken her to after they'd left Flynn's, through the ride back to the hotel, during the elevator's slow ascent to her floor. She'd teased and taunted him, blatantly flaunting her not-inconsiderable charms, playing the outrageous coquette to his staid and stalwart Dudley Do-Right. And he'd enjoy
ed every single, maddening minute of it, egging her on with taunts of his own just to see how far she would go in her attempt to win their battle of wills. Much to his delight, she'd gotten bolder as the evening progressed, upping the ante from teasing sidelong glances and deliberate displays of flesh to outright innuendo and fleeting touches that just bordered on being caresses.

  But, damn, it was beginning to tell on him!

  There was a limit to how long a man could stand being in a constant, unrelieved state of arousal, and he'd just about reached that limit. It was time to call it quits before he did something they'd both regret.

  "What do you say we declare a cease-fire?" he suggested, putting his hands on her shoulders to push her away from him.

  But Willow wasn't about to abandon the attack while he was still standing, especially not while he still wore that insufferably smug, amused male grin.

  She resisted the pressure of his hands and leaned into him, letting her breasts rest against his chest. "Sure I can't tempt you?" she murmured, looking up at him from under the thick fringe of her lashes.

  Steve looked down at the lush expanse of feminine flesh pressed against him. Framed by the edges of her open jacket, the smooth ivory globes of her breasts swelled over the low-cut bodice of her dress in blatant invitation. A tiny muscle began to twitch in his chiseled jaw. The amused grin faded. "You could tempt a saint without half trying," he growled.

  Willow smiled and tilted her head back, giving him an even better view. "But not you," she said, pouting.

  "But not me," he said stiffly, suddenly wondering how he could ever have thought this little game of hers was the least bit amusing. He was suddenly so hard it hurt. "I don't get sexually involved with my clients," he said through clenched teeth. "It's a rule I have."

  Willow lifted her chin so that her lips were mere inches from his. She knew she was playing with fire, she could see it in the blue flames burning in his eyes as he looked at her, feel it in the way his hands flexed against her shoulders, but some devil of feminine pride—or feminine desire—pushed her to test his limits. And her own.