by Lyn Stone
But what was Mary doing up there after her bath? Was she crying again or just hiding from him? She might be afraid he would jump her without any warning, expecting her to put out. Couldn’t have her thinking that.
His former intentions to leave her alone forgotten, Ford climbed the stairs two at a time.
The bubble bath helped restore Mary’s flayed nerves. She had come up to her old room and found it just as she’d left it almost seven months ago, the last time she had visited Gran here.
Hours ago, Ford had gone out to see whether he could repair the van’s muffler. Quite clearly he sought distance, too. No doubt he hoped, just as she did, that they could make what had flared between them subside and die.
She dressed quickly, determined to ignore the feel of silk next to her body. Despite that, she welcomed the familiarity of the dress and the comforting scent of her grandmother’s sachet, which lingered on it. The garment engulfed her and made her feel small again.
Embraced by memories of much happier times, Mary picked up two of the boxes stacked next to her closet door and climbed onto the bed she’d always loved. She gently removed the contents of one box and felt surrounded, protected, and held dear.
Then she heard Ford coming up the stairs. She started to put the doll away, but decided against it.
“In here!” she called out.
A moment later, he appeared in the doorway. He looked pointedly at the Madame Alexander she held in one arm. One eyebrow went up and he pursed his lips as if to keep from smiling.
She held out her treasure. “Snow White,” she said. With one hand, she smoothed down the jet-black hair that shone just as brightly as it must have when her mother had opened the box on that long-ago Christmas.
Ford nodded as he walked over to the tester bed and sat down beside her on the floral comforter. He reached over and moved one of the doll’s arms up and down. “So you haven’t lost them all, after all.”
“These are the most special,” she explained, indicating the stack of boxes she had retrieved from the closet. “My mother’s.”
He smiled softly, his eyes still on the doll. “You make a pretty picture,” he said, “with that outfit on, sitting here in the middle of the bed. Like a little girl playing dressup.”
Mary shifted uncomfortably when he made her aware of what she must look like. She had appropriated one of Gran’s dresses after her shower since her travel bag was still down in the study. She resented his making fun of her, telling her she looked juvenile. Goodness knows, she felt more grown-up right now than was good for her with Ford around.
“‘A little girl’? Well, I certainly hope you don’t entertain any fantasies in that direction!” she said with a toss of her head.
Ford laughed and tapped her nose with his finger. “Not on your life! I just meant that you look cute.” He lifted the unopened box lid and looked inside. “Now who is this little friend?”
“Parian,” she said. “Very old. Pretty, isn’t she?”
“Beautiful,” he commented, looking directly at her.
Mary knew she had to change the subject, bring up something that would turn his thoughts well away from where she could see them heading. “Ford, what are we going to do? We can’t just sit here in Gran’s house waiting for that man. What if your people can’t catch him? What if they never find those diamonds? Much as I love this place, you know we can’t stay here indefinitely even if it is safe. Both of us have lives we need to resume.”
He leaned back, bracing himself on his elbows, his waist brushing against her knee. “Yeah, I’ve been thinking the same thing. We sure can’t count on Blevins to make it happen.”
“Your supervisor?” she guessed.
“Team leader,” he clarified, turning to regard her with a very serious expression. “Mary, I’m going to spell it out because your life’s the one at stake here. I figure this is a need-to-know situation if there ever was one.”
“Tell me,” she urged, leaning forward. “What can I do to help?”
He smiled then, a wonderfully sad smile that made her heart leap. “If we don’t get off the bed this minute, these dollies of yours are going to see that you’re not a child anymore.”
Mary froze for a moment, tempted, then scrambled off the bed in haste, shoved the Snow White back into her tissue bed, and headed for the door. She heard Ford laugh ruefully, but didn’t dare turn around until she got downstairs away from the beds.
He followed her into the study where she had taken refuge, holding a sofa pillow in her lap and trying to catch her breath.
“Close call,” he commented with raised brows. He stood with his hands in his back pockets, the second sofa between them. “Sorry.”
“That’s all right,” she said, feeling the heat rise from her neck to her face. She decided a further explanation might help. “Ford, the thing that worries me most is that I really don’t know you very well. And what I do know—Well, you don’t want us to get involved any more than I do.” She risked a glance up. “Do you?”
“No,” he stated truthfully. Mary knew he meant it. She was dying to know why. He rounded the sofa opposite her and sat down, crossed his arms over his chest and rested one ankle on his knee. “It could be dangerous, Mary. I’m supposed to be looking after you, keeping you safe. We can’t let ourselves start something here, or I might forget that. Forgetting it, even for a minute, could make the difference between saving your life and not. Do you understand? It has nothing to do with how I feel about you personally, or rather what I’m trying not to feel.”
Mary nodded with enthusiasm. “Right! Absolutely right.”
He shrugged. The foot crossed over his knee waggled up and down, betraying his lack of calm. “Might as well admit it’s there, though. I don’t think it’s going away by itself.”
She ducked her head and squeezed her eyes shut. How could they be having this conversation? “I’ve never done anything like last night. I can’t imagine what I was thinking.”
“You weren’t thinking, and neither was I, but it’s done. Okay, here’s the deal,” he said, uncrossing his arms and leaning toward her as though preparing to negotiate. “Whenever one of us feels—you know—attracted or whatever, we say so. With a warning, we can back off quick. Remind each other what a bad idea it is. Okay?”
“Fine,” she muttered, her voice catching in her throat.
“I can do that.” Unless they both got caught up in that overpowering feeling at the same time. Then what?
When Mary finally dared to look at him, Ford seemed infinitely proud of himself and his grand solution. She had to fight back the urge to do something to shake his confidence, to make him run for cover. A childish thought, since he had her best interests in mind here, but he affected her that way with this smugness of his. Maybe because he treated the whole issue like just another bothersome problem to solve with tactics—well-practiced tactics. He’d probably been fending off women when they got too serious for the better part of his adult life.
“Now back to business,” he said, relaxing, stretching his arms out across the back of the sofa. “I honestly don’t believe our situation will alter for the better unless we make it happen.”
“What do you mean?”
“Until Perry is out of commission and the stones turn up, we’re stuck with each other. Worst case, Perry will find us first.”
“Best case?” she asked.
Ford snorted. “Perry drops dead of heart failure and Blevins trips over the gems accidentally?”
“Neither a likely occurrence,” she said, stating the obvious. “So what can we do?”
“Only two options. Hole up and play it safe, or get out of here and take care of business.”
Mary considered. Staying here, secluded with Ford, might appear to be the safer course, but she doubted it. Every moment they spent waiting around increased the chances of Perry finding them. The other, though less lethal, danger of this forced togetherness with Ford, could prove almost as disastrous. “I vote we d
o it,” she said, smacking her palm against one knee. “Let’s find those diamonds!”
Ford rewarded her with the huge grin that always did funny things to her insides. “I just might have misjudged you, Mary Shaw! Now go get out of that damsel-in-distress outfit and find something suitable for breaking and entering.”
Mary brushed her hands over the floral silk clinging to her legs and sighed regretfully. “Black’s not my color, but I’ll see what I can find.”
“Emma Peel, look out!” Ford exclaimed when Mary reappeared dressed in black stretch pants and a longsleeved pullover. She had braided her hair and tucked it up beneath a dark blue beret. When she cocked her brow and slapped a pair of dark gloves across her palm, he laughed.
“Overdone?” she asked, her voice as sultry as ever, but laced with uncertainty.
“Perfect, just perfect,” he answered, shaking his head ruefully. “You just surprised me, that’s all. I didn’t expect you to go all out this way.”
“Well, I’m trying to look the part anyway. I’m not sure how effective I’ll be at this. Are we going to break into the shop?”
Ford sobered. “The school first, I think, so we can get those dolls. If the diamonds aren’t in them, then we’ll hit the shop.”
She started for the door, her stride resolute, but he stopped her. “Wait a minute. We need to get everything straight before we go. I need to ask you some more questions.”
Mary rolled her eyes, looking for all the world like one of the jaded chicks in a James Bond movie. “Okay, shoot.”
“Why did you really go to Antonio’s that night?” he asked, indicating that she should take a seat since this might take a while.
She curled up on the sofa like a lazy cat. Ford beat back the heat with an effort, forcing his mind to focus on her answer and not those legs.
“Antonio called. He said he had to see me, that it was important.” She tried to contain a shudder, but Ford noticed.
“Why didn’t you go out through the street entrance when you heard someone break in?”
“No time, I guess.” She shrugged. “Antonio had all these locks on the front door. If they were all engaged, as they must have been, it would have taken a while to unlock them. He sent me to the back office while he went for the pistol he always kept near the register. I think he thought—”
“That he could handle whoever it was,” Ford finished, pacing back and forth at the side of the sofa where she sat. He paused for a minute to think, then asked, “I know you said you didn’t overhear what they said, but did you get the idea that Antonio knew the man?”
She considered that and a little light seemed to dawn in her eyes as she looked at him. “He must have! He didn’t shoot. I was so busy trying to muffle any sounds from the phone while I dialed the police that I didn’t pay any attention at all to their initial meeting. When I got around to listening, they were speaking in whispers.” Her brows furrowed. “Why would Antonio do that? Shouldn’t he have been shouting, if not shooting?”
“An interesting observation,” Ford admitted. “Did you tell the police about Antonio going for his gun?”
“Yes,” she said. “I think so. I was so flustered at the time, I don’t recall exactly what they asked. It wasn’t much, considering all that had happened.”
“The lights were on in the shop?” Ford asked.
“Only one, near the back, that Antonio always left on at night.” She closed her eyes, leaning her head back, as though trying to remember the details. “I parked in the alley like he told me to do, knocked on the back door, and he let me in. He didn’t fasten the dead bolt after me, just closed the door.”
Ford kept his voice low so that he wouldn’t break her concentration. “The killer came in that way?”
“Yes, he must have bumped against something in the kitchen.”
“The kitchen? I didn’t see a kitchen.”
“Oh, it’s not now. The shop originally was a restaurant. Antonio uses—used the room to store items that needed restoring before he put them out in the shop for sale.”
Ford nodded, compiling his mental notes. “And he gave you those dolls as soon as you got there. Did you get the idea that he had something else important to discuss with you?”
She pursed her lips and raised her head, thinking back. “Yes, I do. He had given me dolls before, as I said. If it were just that, he probably would have said so on the phone when he called. He did the other time, and he didn’t seem so urgent about it then.”
She looked troubled as she met Ford’s eyes. “But what? What could have made him call me to meet him after closing? I had already begun to get ready for bed. I told hun I didn’t want to come out that late, but he insisted.”
“You could have refused,” Ford said, experiencing an unwarranted stab of anger that she would go to so much trouble for the old guy.
She smiled sadly. “I hated to. Antonio was always so kind to me.”
“Kind enough to leave you everything he owned. That’s pretty kind, all right,” Ford muttered.
“What!” she gasped, sitting upright, one arm braced against the back of the sofa. “What are you saying?”
Ford knew nobody could fake the kind of shock visible on her face. “His will. We got a court order to see who would benefit most from Antonio’s death. He left you everything.”
“Oh, God!” Mary covered her face with her hands. “Oh, I had no idea!”
“Well,” Ford said, disturbed by her reaction, “you would have found out soon enough. Maybe he had a premonition that something would happen to him. Maybe that’s what he wanted to tell you.”
“Now we’ll never know,” Mary whispered. “Poor Antonio.”
Ford grunted. “Yeah, poor in luck. Dollarwise, too. But the inventory in the shop’s another story. He knew his business, from what I could see. Very little junk there.”
She nodded, crossing her arms over her chest. “He had excellent taste.”
“In friends, too,” Ford said, forcing a smile he didn’t feel. “Exactly what was he to you, Mary?”
Her eyes widened as she realized what he was asking. “You think—? No, Ford. We weren’t lovers, not ever! He thought of me sort of like a daughter. He even introduced me to Jim at a charity auction we attended almost a year ago. Antonio approved. He wanted me to be happy.”
But she didn’t really believe that, Ford could tell. She wanted to, but she knew better. Though she might not acknowledge it if she didn’t return the feeling, a savvy woman like Mary would have recognized the man’s hidden motives.
Ford remained silent, a slightly amused and knowing gauze trained on her, using one of the techniques he’d been taught to intimidate a subject during interrogation. And that was exactly what this was, he realized. He was treating Mary just as he would if she’d been hauled in for questioning. The need to put her at ease, tell her to forget it, nagged at him. He ignored it.
She reacted as any suspect would, going on the defensive. “He always treated me with the utmost respect, Ford! Antonio was almost old enough to be my father!”
Ford shrugged, still pinning her with his eyes. Jealousy surged through him like a dark tide, drowning his scruples.
For some reason, he needed to make certain Mary hadn’t loved Antonio back. If she could love one man while engaged to another, then she must be as faithless as Nan had been. He could never trust a woman like that.
That thought proved an instant revelation to Ford. He’d always thought he blamed Nan’s unreasonable demands and instability for their breakup. He had capitulated to her every wish, probably to make up for the fact that he didn’t really love her as much as he ought to.
If Nan had sensed that, no wonder she had left him. Ford suddenly realized that Nan’s unfaithfulness had affected him so much that he’d pushed it to the back of his mind and displaced it with other, less painful excuses for their divorce.
He had substituted other reasons for his cynicism and mistrust because if he admitted the real cause for h
er leaving him, he would have to accept the greater part of the blame for it. But now he was projecting whatever sins he attributed to Nan onto Mary, and that was wrong.
If his mind was this screwed up, he surely didn’t need to start up another relationship. He would be wise to back off, and to warn Mary to do so, too.
She had flounced off the sofa, and was now pacing, her back turned to him.
Maybe because he was angry with himself, Ford persisted even while he knew he would regret it. “He must have loved you to leave you everything he owned. Along with the rest of it, those dolls are yours now, free and clear. And they could be full of very valuable diamonds, a wealth Antonio meant for you to have.”
“Yes,” she said, turning to meet his glare head-on, surprising him with her agreement. “You’re probably right. Let’s go straight to Cartland’s and get those dolls.”
Chapter 8
Mary crouched on the floorboard of the van, which Ford had parked behind a Dumpster a block away from his condo. She hardly had time to curse him at any length for leaving her when she heard him return. He tossed a gym bag onto the seat behind her.
“Got it!” he said as he drove out of the dark parking lot that surrounded a less-than-desirable apartment complex.
“I still don’t see why you had to risk coming here,” she muttered.
He hummed, looking both ways at an intersection. “For some clothes. And my tools. With picks I won’t have to break any windows,” he explained. “Don’t want anyone to know we’ve been there. We’ll just get in, grab your purse and get out as fast as we can. We need to make a run by the museum first, though.”
“The museum? Where we hid?” She curled into herself, staring out the window, still expecting bullets to fly any minute. “That’s crazy, Ford.”
“I’ve got to pick up my Jeep,” he said, ignoring her protests. “If it hasn’t already been towed.”