The Perfect Gift

by Christina Skye

  “Whatever it takes, I’ll do it. I have no choice. This madman might know something about my father and how he died. Maybe he was involved.” She turned sharply, bracing one hand against the window, envisioning ugly scenarios that might have culminated in her father’s death.

  Across the room, Jared stood motionless, watching her body stiffen. He had a raw urge to pull her into his arms and slip his hands into the warm tangle of her hair. He wanted to feel her sigh as his mouth opened over hers. Then he wanted to drop his sheet, tug her back on the bed and find out what it took to make her arch against him with wild pleasure.

  But it didn’t require a man of his keen insights to know that the time was impossibly wrong for mindless sex, no matter how intoxicating. She was confused and she was in danger. Right now her mind was three thousand miles away, lost in a restless green jungle dotted by scraps of blackened, twisted metal while she searched for answers that had pained her for months.

  She wasn’t a quitter and she wasn’t a coward. She desperately wanted to close the door on her sad past, but she needed solid reasons.

  Jared couldn’t give her the reasons she wanted. Daniel Kincade’s recent sighting in Asia brought too many questions back into sharp focus. Contact with the rumpled camisole had generated no spark of energy, and Jared suspected their enemy had worn gloves, like a true professional. But if Maggie needed answers, he would find them. He would walk through fire for her and open his mind, no matter the cost to himself.

  Because there was always a cost.

  Sunlight touched her hair, a dozen shades of gold and chestnut. Jared turned away, afraid he would give in to the temptation to probe the swift, restless flow of her thoughts. With her, only her, the temptation was almost beyond resisting.

  “No matter what happens, I want to thank you. This isn’t your fight.” She spoke unsteadily from the window, her back turned. Jared saw her hand slip over one cheek.

  He made a tight, angry sound. “Maggie, you don’t have to—”

  “Yes, I do. I know there will be risks, Jared. I don’t know what my father did to make these people so determined, but I owe it to us both to find out. It’s not your fight, though. You have every right to walk away now before you’re dragged in any deeper.”

  “That changed last night when that damned backhoe came after us.”

  She turned slowly, and sunlight poured over her face. “Are you sure?” For the first time Jared noticed the fine lines around her eyes. “I need to know what I’m getting into, Jared. Most of all, I need to know who I can count on if things get worse.”

  They will. Hard experience had taught Jared that. But he was in, regardless of what threat came next. The fingerprints on her tool case, or the lack of them, would be a clear clue. If their pursuer was a professional, there would be no hint of a print anywhere on the metal. Worse yet, a print might lead them to a dead end, such as an American senator, a French general, or a college professor who had been dead for twenty years.

  Laughing at them. Playing with them. Showing them just how good he was.

  “You can still leave,” she whispered.

  “Yes, I can. So could you. I doubt it would be a success for either of us. That’s the sort of people we are.”

  She made a tight gesture with one hand. “I don’t want to owe you, Jared. It’s not something I do well. My father left me nothing but debts—financial and emotional.” Her hands locked, twisting restlessly. “It was worst for my mother. I think she was secretly afraid that the charges might have been true.”

  “You mean she suspected he had stolen those gems from the Smithsonian show?”

  Maggie shrugged. “The evidence was so strong. And the stress and uncertainty crippled her. She was already sick with emphysema. Worry simply hurried things along.”

  “What about you? How did you deal with the uncertainty?”

  “In my mind there was never a question of his guilt. It doesn’t make sense that my father could suddenly become a cold-blooded thief. He was smart enough to know he couldn’t cheat two governments out of a fortune in gems, especially gems that could never be sold or displayed. The Cullman IV and the Star of Lahore could never be on public display in a museum. As for selling them—even a weekend rock hound would recognize those stones on sight. There is simply no way they could have been resold without attracting instant attention.”

  “Unless they were somehow changed,” Jared mused. “Recut, perhaps.”

  “Recut?” Maggie stared at him. “You must be mad. Would you repaint the Mona-Lisa? Add facial details or body tattoos to Michelangelo’s David?”

  “You might not and I might not, but for some people owning such extraordinary jewels might be worth any price. And they might have no intention of showing them again in public. There are plenty of stolen Old Master paintings hanging on the walls of private estates, believe me.”

  “And you think my father would be part of that? That he took the gems away somewhere so he could sell them for a private collection?” Her voice was raw with pain and fury. “If so you’re a fool. Jewels were his passion, his very soul. When museums had questions, they came to see my father and he always had the right answers. I suppose some people would call his love an obsession, but his skill demanded total focus and commitment. He would never have destroyed the things he loved.”

  And what about his lonely daughter and ailing wife? Jared wondered if Daniel Kincade had loved them half as well as his cold, perfect jewels. How much time did a man with an obsession like that have left for his family?

  Maybe there were debts that Maggie didn’t know about, causing money pressures that had forced her father to the breaking point. A deeper check on Daniel Kincade’s finances over the last years of his life could reveal something. Next on the list would be finding out exactly who had paid the wife’s medical bills. Questions led to more questions, Jared had learned. If you were lucky, the right question could unzip all the answers.

  Of course, it could also get you killed.

  “It was just a supposition, Maggie. I’m not saying your father was involved.”

  “No? It sounded that way to me.” She bit back a flat, angry sound. “Maybe you think I’m all set to try the same thing here. Come to think of it, that’s a perfect idea. Why don’t I sneak upstairs right now? I’m certain the viscount and his wife must have a hoard of jewels that would be irresistible to a greedy little thief like me.” Her voice was ragged, her body stiff. “After all, it must run in the family. Like father like daughter.” Her voice broke as she spun toward the door.

  Jared caught her midway, his hands gentle but inflexible. “Do you think I believe that, Maggie?”

  “I don’t have a clue what you believe. Now let me go.”

  “Not until we have this out in the open.”

  She jerked at his chest, shoving blindly. “I don’t want to talk about it, not any more. Nothing ever changes. Not now, not ever.”

  “Stop fighting me, damn it.” He ducked under her fist, then circled her wrist and trapped her with his body against a bookcase of polished mahogany.

  “Let me go, Jared. I won’t be interrogated.” There was panic in her voice. Jared felt its gray chill bleeding through her rigid body.

  He stared at her wide eyes, watching her face go pale. Despite all his careful control, the link seized him completely and Jared felt a relentless sense of disorientation, as if the room was right, but he was wrong.

  They’d been here before, he thought. They had argued here before, just like this. Colors spun before his eyes, dancing like tiny suns reflected in the abbey’s moat.

  He spoke then. It was a stranger’s voice that framed a stranger’s words. “I’m trying to help you, will you but see it.”

  She made a muffled sound. “All I want is to leave.”

  “You cannot.” The words came low and hoarse, almost without Jared’s knowledge. He was overwhelmed, sensing other days, other arguments that had brought equal pain.

  Break the link, he
thought. But you can’t. Not with each breath driving you deeper, locking you to Maggie and her churning emotions.

  “I know that police car wasn’t requested by Lord Dray-cott last night.” Her voice was raw. “You knew it too. I saw it in your face.”

  Jared took her shoulders and turned her slowly. The woman saw too much, he thought grimly. She always had. It had been her greatest danger.

  He frowned. Where had that come from?

  His hands tightened as he tried to still her angry struggling, and the movement sent the sheet unraveling about his waist. Then it caught between their bodies and slowly pooled onto the floor.

  She barely seemed to notice, straining against his grip. But Jared noticed, every nerve from neck to knee springing to angry, painful awareness.

  He didn’t want to feel the soft silk of her skin at his wrist. He didn’t want to know the warm slide of her breath at his naked shoulder. But he did, and the excruciating clarity was compounded by the hunger rising through him, thick and hot. What he couldn’t understand, couldn’t accept, was that his need felt somehow…

  Familiar.

  He stared at her pale face, straining to understand the chaos of his emotions. And in that second, with a furious slam of color and texture, Jared knew exactly how she would taste, how she would move beneath him in her nakedness. Locked against her, he watched the raw images burn to life with erotic clarity.

  Her thighs as they strained against pale damask.

  Her neck encircled with a delicate chain of silver and pearls.

  Her face as he made the pleasure rise and break within her.

  Cursing, he released her and stumbled back, unable to breathe for the force of the searing visions. Even without physical contact, the memories held, flooding him with new sensations.

  “Jared, talk to me.” Her hand brushed his neck. Instantly the force of contact swept him deeper. He saw a woman in peach silk with lace at each elbow. He felt the rich splendor of nights in a biting wind and her hands digging at his chest, the only warmth or meaning in a world gone mad.

  God, how he had loved her. How he had fought for her, only to watch her ripped from his fingers.

  His fault, all of it.

  “Jared, what’s wrong?”

  His hands were clammy as he pulled away. Wrong? Everything was wrong. His body was wrong and the room was wrong. Most of all, loving her was wrong.

  Because loving her had killed her. Someplace in a past he could neither name nor understand they had touched like this before. As lovers. There was no doubt left in his mind.

  Something lay cold in his throat, and Jared knew it was fear. For the past that had not left them and the danger still to come.

  STEADY, MACNEILL.

  This has an extraordinarily weird feel, even for someone like you, whose experiences of confinement and torture have created a new definition for the word.

  But Jared knew his odd gift didn’t extend to seeing fragments of the past. He took a gravelly breath and felt as if he’d chewed tar. “Maggie, something’s going on here.”

  She brushed at her hair with shaky fingers. “What’s going on is that you’re trying to keep me a prisoner. You’re trapping me, giving me orders. Just like before.”

  So she felt it too, Jared thought. He said nothing, letting her final words hang with ugly clarity.

  She took a harsh breath. “I didn’t mean that.”

  “I think you did.” He felt his jaw, hard like the iron bars of his cage in the jungle hills. The link was tight, electric, snapping all around him. He had never felt more alive, or more out of control, and he wouldn’t stop until there were answers. “In fact, I think you meant it as much as you’ve ever meant anything.”

  “No.” She raised her hand as if blocking a blow. “I couldn’t.” She gnawed at her lip. “There’s no sense to it. Why did I say before? There isn’t any before.” She managed a laugh. “The word just slipped out, that’s all. I was angry and it slipped out. It didn’t mean a thing.” She repeated the words firmly.

  Trying to make herself believe it, Jared thought. And not succeeding.

  He knew exactly what she was feeling. Anger, confusion. Oily waves of fear. He was feeling all those things himself. “It didn’t just slip out and it wasn’t an accident, Maggie. You were seeing things. Feeling things. With me.”

  Her face went starkly pale. “How do you do that? Stay out of my mind.” She shook her head. “Except that’s impossible, isn’t it, Jared?”

  He didn’t move. The tar taste filled his throat and chest until he could barely breathe.

  “Isn’t it, Jared?” Her hands were two tight fists, and she was shaking. “Tell me.”

  How could he tell her what he was still struggling to understand? What a whole battery of experts couldn’t agree on despite four thick boxes full of detailed psychological reports?

  How could he tell her that he was either a borderline madman or a cruel joke of nature, produced by human barbarity?

  “What is it you’re asking, Maggie? Can I read your thoughts? Can I slip inside your head and eavesdrop whenever I want? The answer is no.”

  Not whenever he wanted. The link worked best during physical contact—and during times of stress. About that, Jared hadn’t lied. But God help him, he wouldn’t tell her the full truth either. He doubted she would believe it if he did.

  She crossed her arms, searching his face and sorting his words for truth or lies. She had always been too quick, too sharp. And it had killed her.

  Jared’s body locked.

  Killed her.

  He saw the words. Heard them.

  Sweat touched his brow. Regret, fury, desolate loss—they pounded him now in cruel waves of sight and remembering.

  “Jared, what’s wrong?”

  “You’d—better go.” Maybe with her gone, this tormenting link would snap and the bleak images would fade with it.

  “But you’re…” Her gaze ran along his body. She pulled her gaze back to his face, flushing deeply.

  “Naked?”

  “Upset,” she snapped.

  “It will go away.” He turned, keenly aware of the effect her presence was having on his hardening body.

  “Then I’ll go. But I see patterns. It’s what I’m good at. And if you need something, anything…” She let the thought trail away.

  “I won’t.”

  As the door closed behind her, Jared saw it for the lie it was. A woman like Maggie Kincade could make a man forget nightmares with a single smile, and her touch could banish a dozen fire-breathing dragons.

  Jared knew that with absolute certainty.

  He knew because she’d done it for him once, long before.

  His hands had stopped shaking by the time he dialed the phone. Five minutes had given him time to toss on worn jeans and calm down somewhat.

  The receptionist was brisk and professional. “Dr. Freed’s office. May I help you?” Cold and detached. Used to dealing with neurotics, suicides, and kooks, Jared thought. A bloody sort of job to have.

  “Jared MacNeill. I need to speak with him.”

  There was a moment’s hesitation. Papers rustled. “I’m afraid he’s unavailable, Commander MacNeill.”

  “Who’s on to cover for him? From the official ministry list?” Jared added grimly.

  There was clear protocol for a case like his. Miles of it. With the security aspect factored in, he couldn’t speak to just anyone. Not with the things he knew.

  More paper rustled. “That would be Dr. McNamara.”

  Jared’s hands tightened.

  Elizabeth Hanson McNamara. Four years of neurology at Royal Edinburgh Infirmary. Two years at Mass General, followed by more specialty training at Johns Hopkins. A woman who loved being in control and hated her patients quite passionately.

  Jared had seen all that in a brief five-minute interview and a lingering handshake. He could have lived with that—but not with the rest of what he’d sensed.

  That Dr. Elizabeth McNamara was
keeping secrets from both her current lovers, one a high-level attache to the prime minister and the other the wife of the Danish ambassador. She was also feeling undue personal interest in her newest patient.

  Interest that was patently sexual.

  Jared had thought his mind was a wreck. Then he’d stared into the darkness of hers. One appointment had been more than enough for him.

  “Commander MacNeill, would you like her number? She can call up your case file if you’d like.”

  “No, that won’t be necessary.”

  “Is there a specific problem? I’m sure Dr. McNamara—”

  “No problem. I’ll try Dr. Freed next week.”

  He hung up before there were any more questions. Every instinct warned against further contact with this woman, although she was one of the team of three medical experts assigned to oversee his case after his return from Asia. Next week he would try the others, and until then he would navigate this particular storm on his own. His sensitivity was growing, enhanced by every moment of contact with Maggie, and even that he could deal with. What he couldn’t deal with was the possibility of failing her.

  He’d failed himself in Thailand and he’d failed his partner, but Jared would remove himself from the game before he failed Maggie. And it was a game, he sensed. A very deadly game.

  He held his hands rigid before him and watched them shake. His shoulders bunched, refusing to relax. It was a play-by-play encounter, with a madman in control. If Maggie or her father had something important, there were easier, more direct ways to claim it. But their enemy wasn’t taking the direct approach. He was taking his bloody time, studying Maggie and letting her fear build. Jared sensed that he needed to know she was afraid of him.

  Then and only then would his game move to its deadly conclusion.

  Jared forced his hands to stillness. He did the same to his turbulent thoughts—-or at least he tried.

  Maggie Kincade didn’t need a confidante with an unraveling hold on reality, he thought grimly. She didn’t even need an inventive lover. What she needed was a protector.