by Jenna Ryan
“We have a charity dinner to survive tonight.”
Rudy snorted. “Peace on earth, good will to men. For all our sakes, let’s pray for a midnight truly clear.”
IT MUST HAVE BEEN a delayed reaction that gave the day such a strange luster. Devon couldn’t think of a single other reason for her skittish mood, or the tremors that chose the oddest moments to scuttle her.
“It’s often forced socializing,” her guest psychologist had offered disdainfully, “that causes so many of us to suffer from bouts of depression during the holiday season. That plus the expectations we put upon ourselves and others to purchase the best gifts, to be on our best behavior, to spend the most money, to outdo each other in every conceivable way. Then there are the charities...”
Devon hadn’t liked the man very much, had certainly not agreed with his gloomy assessment of decaying holiday spirit.
“Surely Christmas hasn’t fallen complete prey to commercialism,” she’d argued gently. “I know a number of volunteers who do work for charity. They love what they do. They love the results of it even more.”
The man had merely sniffed at her and mouthed the word, “Humbug.”
The couple from the animal shelter had lifted her spirits considerably, so much so that she’d almost succeeded in forgetting about yesterday’s attack and subsequent delivery. She wasn’t quite able to obliterate the feel of Riker’s mouth on hers or fully comprehend the fences he seemed determined to erect between them.
“You’re emcee tonight, Devon,” Alma informed her after the show. “I’ve given it some thought, and Warren’s just too long-winded in the spotlight.”
“Emcee. Right.” Devon propped her chin in her cupped palm and regarded the older woman across her relatively tidy desk. “You know, don’t you? About what happened here yesterday.”
It was all the invitation Alma needed. She closed the door behind her and cut a brisk path to Devon’s desk. One plump finger stabbed the air between them. “I told you this business with the pendant was serious. You should have been more careful.”
“In my own office, in a supposedly secure building?”
“Don’t use that breach-of-security bull on me, my dear. If someone can get into the Queen’s Buckingham Palace bedroom, a radio station would be a piece of cake. Nothing is secure, these days. You take precautions, that’s your best security.”
“I have police protection.”
To Devon’s surprise, Alma flushed, not a pretty pink but beet red. Despite the tone of their conversation, Devon smiled. Alma had spent most of last evening trading barbs with Rudy Brown. Given Alma’s attitude toward men, her current reaction was a rather revealing one.
Alma planted her hands on her ample hips. “Yes? Is there something you’d like to say?”
The smile blossomed. “I invited Riker and Rudy to the party tonight.”
“Good.” In total control, Alma gave a curt nod. “I like the idea of—” Her head swung around “What was that? Hello?” She raised her voice. “Who’s there?”
With the door closed, Devon couldn’t really speculate on the cause of the small sound in the corridor, but it had a definite aspect of stealth about it.
When no one answered, she stood. “Should we look?”
“Probably, but I’ve spooked myself with all this talk of precautions and Queen Elizabeth’s bedroom. Who is it?” she demanded in her most authoritative tone.
Devon craned her neck. “There, I heard it again.” She sighed. “This is ridiculous, Alma. It’s three in the afternoon and there are two of us here.” She started for the door, her tread determined if a trifle less confident than usual. “I won’t jump at shadows because of a pendant.”
“Be careful,” the other woman instructed as she reached the door.
Sticking her head out, Devon looked right, then left, then frowned. Unsure, she continued to stare at the distant corner where one of Alma’s fairy-lit potted palms twinkled.
“What is it?” Alma demanded.
“I saw someone. Part of him anyway.”
“Him?” Joining her, Alma peered out. She let her round brown eyes scan the empty corridor. “I don’t see anything.”
“Well, he’s gone now, isn’t he?” Impatient, Devon ran the fingers of her right hand through her hair. “This is very weird, Alma. Too weird.”
“It must have been Caleb from maintenance,” Alma decided. “I told him to inspect the carpets, see if they needed shampooing.”
“It wasn’t Caleb,” Devon told her. “He wasn’t wearing coveralls.”
“Well, who was it then?”
There was no mistaking the rough edge in her employer’s voice. Wisely, Devon backed off. “I don’t know. But he wasn’t wearing navy coveralls. Let’s forget it, okay? Nothing happened. I’m going to finish here then pick Hannah up at Hare and Woden.”
Devon knew Alma well enough to recognize relief when she saw it. Was she worried that it had been her brother lurking in the hallway? Her brother who’d been charged not once but three times with sexual harassment during his twenty-five years in radio?
Devon hugged her arms across her chest after Alma’s departure. Maybe she should have set the older woman’s mind at ease. It hadn’t been Warren whose curly head she’d spied ducking around the corner. She was ninety-nine percent sure it had been Jimmy Flaherty’s.
“Damn.” The word came out with regret. If not Jimmy with his easy grins and affable nature, then whom could she trust?
Hesitating for an instant, she picked up her cordless handset and very slowly punched in the cell-phone number that Riker had given her.
“WHAT WAS he wearing?”
“A green sweater and jeans.” Devon shook flakes of snow from the burgundy scarf she’d draped over her head. Riker steered her by the arm to an unpopulated corner of the restaurant lobby. “Do you see him?”
He meant Jimmy, and she did. Black pants instead of jeans, but he was still wearing a hunter-green sweater.
“I’m not absolutely sure about this, you know.” She unclasped her black wool cape and handed it to the coat check. “It was the curly hair that got my attention.”
“And the green sweater.”
Against logic, Devon defended Jimmy’s motives. “He might have come to see me and heard Alma in my office. It isn’t wise to intrude when she’s around.”
“So why did you call me?”
Devon paused. “I’ll mull that over,” she murmured. Humor bubbled up into her green eyes. She ran a finger over the lapel of his loose black jacket. “You look very handsome tonight. Matching jacket and pants, white shirt, no tie—this is almost a suit, Riker.”
A veil dropped over his handsome features. “It’s as close as I get.” His gaze fixed on Jimmy. “Go do your host thing, Devon. I’m going to talk to your assistant newsroom coordinator.”
Unthinking, Devon adjusted her drapey garnet jacket and short straight skirt. Poor Jimmy, she thought with a pang. He wasn’t accustomed to lean, hungry wolves circling his doorstep.
Hannah arrived on Roscoe’s arm, pink-cheeked from the cold. Devon hadn’t seen that spark of contentment in her soft brown eyes since before her husband’s funeral early in the year. Give Roscoe his due, he’d made Hannah smile again.
The Holly Tree was a large restaurant, beautifully appointed with an oak parquet floor polished to a rich shade of honey, round tables covered with red linen cloths and white Irish lace toppers. The chandeliers dripped with crystal; the silverware was Georgian, the place settings vintage Doulton. But it was the Christmas trees which took pride of place in the main dining room, two of them, each topping ten feet, spreading wide, tinsel-laden branches on opposite sides of the tiled hearth.
Warren offered her a crooked smile and a toast from the head of the already crowded room. Behind him lay a multitude of brightly wrapped gifts on the floor under the trees. Presents for underprivileged children. Funds from this dinner would also provide a number of people in Philadelphia with more than one hot
meal during the holidays. And later, Santa Claus would arrive with bags full of extra goodies.
Devon worked her way through the chattering crowd. She liked people, on top of which, everyone in attendance had paid a high price to be here tonight.
She lost sight of Riker somewhere near the refreshment table, then reminded herself that they both had a job to do. If other couples who’d arrived together were taking the opportunity to dance to Phil Specter, that was their business—although she did love to dance and certainly could have stolen a few moments away from her duties to enjoy herself.
“You have a pleasant way about you, Devon.”
Rudy’s canny remark brought a smile to her lips, and had her turning from her circle of City Life sponsors to greet him.
“Actually, I’m the black sheep of my family in that regard. My parents and sisters have a lot more parlor chat in them than I do.”
“You prefer getting to the point, do you?”
“It saves time.” Her eyes teased. “Where’s Alma?”
A gruff laugh rumbled up in his chest. “Right now? Keeping that lush brother of hers from falling face down in the punch bowl. She’s a good woman, is Alma. Almost wish I were free to court her.”
The word charmed. Devon covered her amusement. “That’s good of you to say, Rudy.”
He shrugged. “I prefer honesty myself. Figure you do, too.” His gaze shifted. “And Alma. I’ll head over and have a heart to heart with her. You, uh, seen Riker?”
“Not for several minutes.” She hadn’t seen Jimmy either, Devon realized and wondered why that should disturb her.
Leaving Rudy to bare his soul to Alma, she continued to mingle. Damn Riker, though, she wanted to dance with him at least once tonight.
“Dev?”
A hesitant tap on her shoulder made her heart stutter. She turned. “Jimmy!” She had to force back disappointment. “I thought you were—” She caught herself and substituted a hasty, “Warren.”
Jimmy’s grin was oddly lopsided. “Nah. He’s busy playing bartender.”
Devon noted the slight slur. “And you’ve been assisting him, huh?”
The grin faded as Jimmy’s gaze dropped to his shuffling feet. “I was talking to your cop friend, actually. I don’t think he likes me very much.”
Devon took pity on him, laying a hand on his surprisingly wiry forearm. “He has a job to do, Jimmy. He can’t afford to be...friendly.”
“He’s friendly to you.”
A light of something she couldn’t read glinted deep in Jimmy’s cobalt eyes. Resentment maybe. Or jealousy. She shied away from the idea and gave him a gentle push. “Why don’t you ask Teddi to dance before old Mrs. Gammon talks her into a stupor?”
Jimmy’s face resumed its genial cast. “Okay, sure. Anyone can dance to the Boss.”
The skin on the back of Devon’s neck tingled, but she waited until the younger man reached Teddi’s side before venturing a bland, “You have all the earmarks of a ghost, do you know that? Here, gone and here again, all in the blink of an eye.”
Riker detached himself from the shadow of an oak pillar. “I played the ghost of Christmas Present once in high school.”
“But I’ll bet you really wanted to be the faceless Future.”
Now it was Riker’s eyes that glinted in the silvery pool of light. But where Jimmy’s had puzzled her, this man’s rendered her breathless, or very close to it. “It was one of many wishes, Devon. Unfortunately, as hard as I tried, I couldn’t be faceless for any length of time.”
An intriguing thought, Devon reflected as he reached for her hand.
Just at that moment, however, she had no desire to think. She was curious about the kind of man Riker must be. She’d already seen his reserve, and the somber, solemn aspect to his nature. But he wasn’t devoid of humor by any means, nor, she suspected, was he completely unaffected by her.
That made them even, she decided, fighting a shiver as his thumb stroked the soft skin of her inner wrist.
“Oíche Chuín,” he said, glancing at an open spot on the floor. “‘Silent Night.’ Do you like to dance?”
“I love to.” She tipped her head to study him. “I didn’t know you spoke Gaelic.”
“I don’t. I just know Enya.”
“Personally?”
Amusement played on the corners of his mouth. His hands spanned her waist, drawing her forward into his body. “I don’t know many people personally, Devon. It makes life easier that way.”
“It makes life boring, if you ask me.”
She wondered how he would react if she inched just a little closer to him. Probably not all that well, given his philosophy of life.
On the floor, Riker’s breath stirred the hair on her temple. He smelled clean, like a winter garden in the north. His hand pressed erotically into the small of her back. Whether intentional or not—likely not, knowing Riker—the contact caused Devon’s breath to hitch slightly in her throat.
One thing at least. The sexual tugs she felt were far from one-sided. When “Silent Night” melted into “O Holy Night,” he settled her hips against his harder ones, tucked her head into the crook of his shoulder and turned his face into her softly scented hair.
God help his senses. She smelled like spring in Ireland. Jacob had been there once at Easter, when the green of Eire had come fully into bloom. He’d been an inquisitive seven year old boy, hunting for leprechauns under tree roots and in every shoe store his mother and his unbelieving great-aunt had dragged him through.
But no bony fingers held his in an iron grip tonight.
Jacob grimaced at the lance of heat and desire that rocketed through him. He wanted Devon badly, was attracted to her on a level that came dangerously close to frightening. He hadn’t had feelings of this magnitude for years, hadn’t allowed himself to care for any female since Laura had died eight years ago.
The memory sobered him, but did nothing to alleviate the pain that persisted in his lower limbs and in his head. He could want Devon, but could not afford to become emotionally involved with her.
She twisted slightly in his grasp. It only took that single, small action to snap his mind swiftly back to the reality of the crowded dance floor.
She raised her head. Those moss-green eyes of hers stared into his. “Sorry,” she said. “You were squeezing me.”
He relaxed his hold instantly. It didn’t help. Her skin was pure roses and cream, her lashes, a sinful length and thickness.
“You make me think of a Chinese puzzle.” She shifted her head to a considering angle. “A mystery with a simple but tricky solution. What are you hiding in that head of yours?”
Sheer willpower kept the tension knots at bay. He moved the shoulder where her hand rested. “You tell me. I’m just a cop, doing my job.”
“Is part of that job to renovate the apartment you’re renting?”
“Idle hands, Devon.”
She laughed. “Pretty lame answer, Riker, but I understand the feeling. I’m not much good at twiddling my thumbs either.”
On the other hand, she was a master at making the blood pump hot and fast to certain of his vital body parts.
Jacob ran his fingers up her delicate spine. Skin like rose petals—God, he could feel the warmth of it through her clothes.
A hungry ball of desire lodged in his throat. How could he hope to combat that?
Music floated in the air around them, mingling with a multitude of scents: pine boughs, perfume, roast turkey from the kitchen. Voices murmured in the background. The shadows shifted with the dancers. Devon’s heart beat a quick rhythm against his.
She stared at him as the song began its slow build to the finale. Need became a buzz in Jacob’s brain. His right hand released hers, moving reluctantly to the gentle curve of her jaw.
She regarded him, lips parted, green eyes following every nuance of expression, every move he made.
“You’re going to kiss me, aren’t you?” It was half a question, half an accusation. “I
don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Neither do I.”
A sigh fluttered out of her. “You’re so damned complicated, Riker. Why is that?” They slowed as the dance concluded. A smattering of applause punctuated the din in Jacob’s brain. He saw her lips curve into a doubtful smile. “I’m really not sure about this, at all.”
“I am.” Was that his voice he heard—rough and dark, thick with conflicting emotions? Jacob’s fingers moved to cup the nape of her neck. He was sure this was the worst possible idea. And he was going to do it anyway.
Tossing wisdom out the window, he brought his mouth down on hers in a kiss that was equal parts aggravation and desire. With his tongue he tasted her, the sweetness, the fire and the uncertainty.
She hesitated briefly, then responded, sighing as she hooked her arms around his neck.
A sudden bolt of panic pierced the layers of cloud that fogged his brain. What the hell was he doing! Touching, tasting, wanting her so intensely that he forgot the lies that separated them?
He started to withdraw, then frowned as Devon captured a strand of his hair.
“What?” he asked warily.
“Your hair.” She stared, absorbed. “It feels like silk.”
He closed his eyes, then opened them. The mask slid firmly back in place. “You find that interesting?”
She made an uncertain motion. “The man who attacked me in my office had hair like silk, too. I felt it on my neck when he bent over me.”
Jacob paused. “Isn’t most hair silky?”
“Not at all. My producer in L.A. had hair like steel wool.” She glanced in Jimmy Flaherty’s direction and cocked an eyebrow. “I could test it out easily enough.”
“Forget it, Devon. We think the person who attacked you is here tonight; we can’t be sure.”
“It isn’t hard to ruffle hair, Riker. I’ll dance with Warren first.”
Jacob held onto her wrist. “You can’t go around sliding your fingers through the hair of every male in the room.”
“I can unless you have a better suggestion.”