One-Click Buy: September 2010 Harlequin Blaze

by Lori Wilde

  She stepped close and laid her palm against his jaw. “I don’t care what you’ve done in the past. I care about who you are now.”

  Then she kissed him and left.

  In the car, she called Andrea. After arranging to meet her at the jewelry store the next morning, Malina told her about what had happened with Carr and asked his friend to check in on him later.

  “What happened in this woman’s case?” Andrea asked, her tone full of worry.

  “I don’t know, but I’m damn sure gonna find out.”

  MONDAY MORNING, Malina walked into a slightly shabby jewelry store on the edge of a respectable neighborhood in downtown Charleston.

  She found Andrea Landry already inside the small, dark place, talking to an elderly man in a baby-blue cardigan. He held a jeweler’s loupe up to one eye. He looked like somebody’s birdhouse-making grandfather.

  This case got weirder all the time.

  “Malina,” Andrea began with a twinkle in her eyes, “meet Bill Billings.”

  I rest my case.

  Malina shook Billings’s hand, then wasted no time in pulling the evidence bag from her jacket and handing over both the diamond and the list of stolen Australian gems.

  Billings examined the stone, then, within moments, he was lowering his loupe and studying the list. “It’s this one,” he said, pointing at the seventh diamond on the list.

  Malina exchanged a startled look with Andrea. “You’re sure?”

  “Gemology isn’t an exact science, yet each gem is unique. Gems are identified by their weight, color and number and location of inclusions—naturally occurring flaws.”

  “Right,” Malina said, nodding. “Like the fewer the imperfections, the more the stone’s worth.”

  Billings smiled. “Exactly. If I was going to name the characteristics of this particular stone, this—” he pointed to the list “—is how I would catalog them. To be more certain, I’d need a microscope or a refractometer.”

  Malina angled her head. “A what?”

  “It measures the refraction of light in a gem—the angles,” Andrea explained. “I can get the diamond to someone who has one if you need.”

  “Yeah, that would be good.” Malina directed her attention to Billings. “But you’re reasonably confident even without this refractometer thing, right?”

  “Hmm…reasonably confident,” Billings said, as if testing both the idea and the words.

  “As in, could you testify in a court of law regarding your findings if you were ever called on by the government to do so?”

  “Court, huh?” He chuckled. “Sure, honey. Be glad to.”

  Malina returned the diamond to its envelope, thanked Billings for his time, then strode outside with Andrea.

  “It looks like you found part of your Australian cache.”

  In the face of the bright sun overhead, Malina put on her sunglasses. “Looks like.”

  “So what’s the next step?”

  “Did you give me Bill Billings for fun, or does he really know what he’s talking about?”

  Andrea grinned. “Both.”

  “Thanks, I needed a laugh today.” Malina shook her head ruefully. “People do some crazy-ass things to their kids.”

  “Don’t they? He’s got brothers named Will and Phil, if you can believe it.”

  “Absolutely bonkers.”

  Andrea shifted from one foot to the other. “Are you going to ask me about Carr?”

  “He sent me home to get some sleep, and I didn’t close my eyes all night.” Malina sighed, exhausted and beyond worried. She was scared. About Carr’s reaction to that unstable woman’s assault, about the information she’d learned and about how much she cared concerning both. “Do you have time for some coffee?”

  Andrea linked her arm through Malina’s. “There’s a shop two blocks over.”

  Tucked into a corner booth with caramel mocha lattes—way too sweet, but Malina hadn’t wanted to be shrill and ask for plain coffee—they sipped and watched shoppers pass by the window for a couple of minutes before Andrea broke the silence.

  “I’ve never seen him like that.”

  The guilt Malina had been battling back all night washed over her anew. “I shouldn’t have left him.” She bowed her head, massaging her temples. “I didn’t know what to do. I’ve never not known what to do.”

  Andrea gripped her hand and squeezed. “It’s harder to react when you care so much about the one in pain.”

  Malina managed to nod. Keeping the professional and personal separate. That had been her plan. What a joke.

  “Do you want to hear it all?”

  Malina lifted her head to stare into Andrea’s understanding eyes. “I have to.”

  “I called him and asked if I could do anything. He blew me off, but I brought him dinner around six anyway. He refused to eat.”

  “Was he drinking?”

  “No. Given his state, I was sort of surprised he was stone sober.”

  “He threw back a whiskey at three in the afternoon. I asked him not to have any more.”

  “Well, despite the pain he was in, he kept that promise.”

  “That’s something, I guess.”

  Andrea glanced out the window before looking back at Malina’s face. “I think he was punishing himself by not drinking. He was forcing himself to face what he’d done without anesthesia, as if he deserved to suffer.”

  So many what? she’d asked.

  People I’ve destroyed, he’d answered.

  “Yeah.” Malina sipped the overly sweet coffee to burn away the emotions clogging her throat. “I can see that.”

  “When I refused to leave him, he stormed outside onto the beach.”

  “He likes to walk to relax,” Malina mused, curling her hands into fists.

  “I sent Tyler out to talk to him, but they nearly came to blows, so we pretended to go.”

  “Pretended?”

  “Tyler and I waited until he’d set the house alarm and gone upstairs, then we spent the night on his sofa. We have each other’s alarm codes in case there’s an emergency while one of us is traveling.”

  Never before had Malina felt so powerless, ashamed and yet so grateful at the same time. “Thank you. I should have been there. He needed me, and I ran.”

  “Maybe so, but I think you’re the one person he doesn’t want to see. He doesn’t want to face you. Why? Because of something in his past? Because some nutty woman clocked him?”

  Malina shifted her gaze to Andrea’s. “Did he say anything about her?”

  “No. The only thing I got out of him was he died because of my greed. Do you know what he meant?”

  “I do.”

  And she realized she and Carr had followed similar paths last night, though they’d been miles apart physically. He must have looked up the case he couldn’t recall, just as she’d done.

  So she told Andrea about Aberforth versus Bailey Industries.

  Bailey manufactured kids’ toys, mostly cheap, plastic wagons and indoor riding scooters for toddlers. Sandra Aberforth had tripped over her son’s scooter and broken her hip. She’d had several surgeries, but would still walk with a slight limp the rest of her life. She was pissed and on the verge of bankruptcy, so she sued.

  The court found in her favor and awarded her an astounding ten million dollars. Bailey Industries went belly-up six months later, and Charles Bailey killed himself a month after that.

  The newspaper accounts of the trial credited the plaintiff attorney’s impassioned closing statement with the unusually high judgment.

  “Carr was the attorney,” Andrea said, her eyes full of bleak understanding.

  “I think we can assume the widow, Coraline Bailey, was the woman in the plum suit with the swift backhand.” Malina cupped her hands around her coffee cup, hoping for warmth that didn’t come. “She took up tennis and a crusade for tort reform after her husband’s tragic death.”

  As awful as the case sounded in black and white, did the knowledge real
ly change Malina’s opinion of Carr? She wasn’t naive. She’d always known a lawyer didn’t get to his level of success without working a lot of different angles, cultivating a wily personality and pushing the boundaries of right and wrong. Saturday night she’d even teased him about owning lots of gray suits.

  She hadn’t cared then, when she was using his clever brain to help her solve her case. She had absolutely no right to judge him now.

  And she found talking with Andrea made her understand the desire she had for him was as strong as ever. How many deals had the Bureau made with low-level criminals in order to get the guy at the top? How many times had she swallowed her personal opinions and followed orders she thought either overenthusiastic or impotent?

  Justice wasn’t always pretty.

  As Carr had once told her, honesty and truth were two different concepts. So, whatever he’d done, whatever the lingering consequences of his actions, at some point he’d decided…

  “That’s why he defends churches and charities,” Malina found herself saying aloud.

  Andrea sipped her coffee. “Carr does work pretty closely with Sister Mary Katherine. They’re an odd pair in a way, but—”

  Malina grabbed Andrea by her wrist. “He’s trying to make up for all the things he’s done in his past. From the beginning, I thought his interest in the possibility of smuggling was too much. I could never figure out why he wanted to devote so much of his time to this case.”

  “Oh, come on. I think you probably had something to do with that.”

  “It’s not just about me.” Though Malina acknowledged that their desire was powerful, maybe even life-changing—at least for her. “He’s repenting.”

  “Repenting?” Andrea flicked her hand to the side as she leaned back in the booth. “That’s a bit dramatic.”

  “But he believes it,” Malina insisted, hunching forward. “Absolutely.”

  For a few minutes, Andrea said nothing. Then, “Well, he is Catholic.”

  CARR FLUNG open his front door only after the patently annoying person on the porch apparently didn’t get the message that he didn’t want to be disturbed. Didn’t a man have the right to refuse company anymore?

  He was going to make damn sure that piece of legislation was on the next senate bill.

  “Look, I don’t—” He stopped, clenching his fist by his side.

  Malina was on his porch. She was wearing the familiarly staid navy-blue suit, white shirt, sidearm and fierce expression.

  He nearly fell to his knees.

  “You don’t want to see me?” she asked, her gaze and tone challenging. She grabbed his hand and tugged him outside, where the sun blared down on him. “Too bad.”

  He dug in his heels. He outweighed her, was certainly stronger physically. “I’m sick.”

  “So I noticed.” She jerked him forward a few more steps, belying his confidence in his power. “Your secretary was helpful in telling me you haven’t failed to show up at the office a single weekday in two years.”

  “Everybody’s entitled to a day off.”

  “But not you. You’re on a mission.”

  Despite his reluctance to leave, he found himself standing next to her sedan. “I’m sick.”

  “Bull.” She pushed her face near his. “You’re not a wallower, Hamilton. You’re strong and crafty and determined. Sure, you’ve got issues. Don’t we all?” She flung open the passenger door and pushed him inside. “Me, I’m terrified by you and what we become when we’re together, but here I am anyway.”

  Slamming the door closed, she rounded the car with resolute strides, giving Carr his first hint of hope since yesterday. He’d been so sure she’d run from him after learning the ugly truth about his past.

  There was no way she hadn’t gone home and researched the case Mrs. Bailey had shoved in their faces. And still she was here.

  Despite her need to get ahead and her desire to push at the strictures of justice, she’d never gone outside that barrier. He had. So many times.

  And yet she was here; she hadn’t turned away.

  He wasn’t sure whether to be grateful or angry. “Where’re we going?”

  “The shooting range.”

  Disbelieving, he stared at her profile. “The—”

  She threw the car into Reverse, did a quick turn, then shot out onto the road. “You like to walk on the beach. I like to shoot. Let’s try my way this time.”

  10

  BEFORE CARR COULD blink, he found himself standing in an indoor shooting stall with a pistol in his hand and a target in the distance.

  He felt ridiculous. How was this supposed to help him deal with the fact that he’d spent most of his life as an unconscionable leech?

  With a sigh, he fired. Again. Then again.

  Each time, the kick from the pistol jolted him back, and he found himself wanting to overpower the urge to recoil.

  Malina laid her hand on his back and shouted over the other shots echoing through the range. “Relax your fingers! Keep your shoulders and stance strong.”

  Taking her advice, he found his rhythm smoother, his shots more accurate. At some point, the world around him fell away and all he saw was the target.

  When the clip was empty, she reloaded for him, and he set off again.

  He pictured nights he’d toasted victory with colleagues in Manhattan. He remembered the cold satisfaction he’d felt the first time one of his clients had received a judgment that was way out of proportion with the damage done. He recalled the times he’d smiled over companies driven to their knees or out of business entirely as a result of cases.

  At the end of the fourth round, he was exhausted and oddly cleansed. The exercise had been brutal but absolutely necessary.

  He and Malina might be different in many ways but she understood, as no one else could, that he needed a safe way to expend his anger. He’d spent the past few years hating himself, and he needed to kill his old life before he could truly move ahead to the new future he was embracing.

  Not a therapy the good Sister might advocate, but one he supported anyway.

  “Don’t even think about doing that in reality,” Malina said, snagging the gun from his hand and holstering it.

  “Why?” He pulled off his headphones. “I didn’t do so bad.”

  She glanced back at the target and winced. “Firearms are for trained professionals, which you most certainly are not.”

  He’d hit, well…something most of the time. “You do it,” he challenged.

  “Nah. Too easy.”

  “But you come here a lot.”

  Her gaze searched his, and whatever she found had her turning. “Come on.”

  After a walk down the hall, through a door and yet another hall, he found himself in a stark room with dark walls extending in a box in front of him. Malina walked to the far end of the room, where a computer rested. She tapped the keys, then pulled a pistol, not from her holster, but a bin beside the monitor.

  As she approached him, he noticed both the challenge in her eyes and the gun in her hand.

  “It has the same weight as a real pistol,” she said, shoving not an ammunition clip but a tiny card, like the ones in digital cameras, into the butt of the gun. “Ready?”

  After a mesmerizing pause as he was captured senseless by her turquoise eyes, he nodded.

  She pressed another button on a tiny black box against the wall.

  The simulation began.

  It was sort of like shooting ducks with a rifle at the fair, only the scene was a computer-generated, 3-D, all-too-real video game. The bad guys jumped out from all angles, firing at will. People screamed. The report of guns ricocheted. And, near the end, the lights went out and Carr heard random fire from seemingly all directions.

  Malina simply closed her eyes and continued to knock off targets.

  “How’d you do that?” Carr asked as they walked out of the gun club a while later.

  “Arrange for you to shoot inanimate objects and save yourself thousands o
f dollars in therapy? I called and made a reservation.”

  “I got that.” Carr slid his arm around her waist as he steered her back against the car. “How can you close your eyes and still hit all the targets?”

  “I practice.”

  “Uh-huh.” He pressed his body the length of hers, and she let out a quiet moan. He was alive again, and she was the reason. He skimmed kisses along her neck. “How?”

  “You’re certainly back to normal.”

  “Thanks to you. How?”

  She met his gaze. “Your vision isn’t as acute as your hearing in the dark. Closing my eyes helps me to focus. What you hear is just as important as what you see.”

  “Mmm…and what do you hear?” he whispered in her ear.

  “You. I hear you…constantly.” She wrapped her arms around his waist and laid her head against his chest.

  The helplessness that had invaded him so thoroughly had lifted, and he knew both Malina’s unusual brand of therapy, as well as the woman herself, had caused the change. What he didn’t know was why she’d decided to help him.

  She seemed to use any excuse to discount or outright avoid their relationship, and yet she was beside him. Holding him.

  “How about dinner? I’m fairly certain there’s a roasted chicken with vegetables in my fridge that’s completely untouched.”

  “You’re on.”

  THEY MANAGED idle conversation during dinner, but the moment the last plate was in the dishwasher, they grabbed each other.

  Covering her mouth with his, he backed her against the kitchen counter as she attacked the buttons on his shirt. He cupped her cheek in his palm, angling her head, deepening the kiss with needy desperation. He slid his tongue against hers as they continued to fumble with their clothing, their fingers clumsy in desperation.

  She got his pants and shirt unfastened, then rolled a condom in place. He got her shirt off, her front-clasp bra unhooked and her pants and panties off. Just enough access so that when he lifted her onto the counter, he was able to enter her in one, smooth, deep stroke.

  “Oh, man,” she moaned. “Please do that again.”

  He obliged her until she’d wrapped her legs like a vise around his waist and her breathing grew choppy, frantic. She came on a hot groan of surrender, squeezing with potent, seductive pulses, bringing him to his own breath-stealing climax.