Sexy as Sin (Sinful, Montana Book 3)

by Rosalind James

  It’s Rafe, he read. Just heard from Willow. You need to go get her.

  He didn’t keep reading. He just punched the button to call back.

  She was so cold.

  She’d been well and truly lost since darkness had fallen. It wasn’t that she hadn’t paid attention, because she had, at least at first. She’d started out walking southwest, because the courthouse was to the east, and she couldn’t bear to walk that way. She’d huddled into her new red coat, turned her face into the freezing wind, and kept walking until she’d made it to some streets that curved, to hills that headed straight up and allowed her legs and her lungs to push out the anxiety.

  The problem was, though, that hills and curves messed with your sense of direction, and so did darkness. She turned downhill, but three streets later, the slope changed to uphill. Which way was toward the Pearl District, and the river? She couldn’t tell.

  When the rain began, she started to run. It wasn’t easy in the new boots, which were more decorative than they were comfortable, but at least it warmed you up.

  Finally, she was on level ground again, so that was something. The center of the city was flatter than the area to the west, right? At least, that was what she’d seen from the plane. And the river would always be the lowest point. The street signs didn’t tell her much. Southwest 18th. The loft was on Ninth, but was it southwest? She didn’t think so.

  Keep going. There has to be somewhere you can ask for directions. She was so wet, though, and it was so cold, and she had a blister on her upper toes that rubbed every time she put her left foot down. It was raining hard enough that she was having trouble seeing, and she was having more trouble thinking.

  Stop being such a baby. And stop wishing you’d taken your phone. You didn’t take your phone, so there’s no point wishing.

  She kept on because she had no choice, and heard a rumble ahead over the sound of the rain. Pillars above her, and a concrete bulwark. The motorway. Another good sign, if it was the right motorway, the one she’d walked under earlier. Another lurch of fear, and she thought, It doesn’t matter if it is or isn’t the right direction. There are people somewhere. She passed a vacant lot and headed under the overpass, and saw what looked like a tent city under there, filled with odd humps and shadows, with the odd light bouncing off a pair of legs, a low yellow tent.

  People worse off than you, that’s all, and fear gets you nowhere. She headed along the sidewalk, moving briskly, aware of heads turning to watch her, but nobody said anything, even though she felt like there was a target on her back. It was the new red coat, its sumptuousness making her feel guilty despite the lack of coyote fur. When she moved out from under the shelter, the rain pelted her back and soaked her jeans, but she had her coat, and gloves and a hat, and shoes, even if her left foot was burning like fire. She was lucky. She was lucky.

  Ahead of her, somebody was shuffling along, head down and pelted by rain. Willow ran to catch up, but the person didn’t turn. A woman, she thought. “Pardon me,” she said. “Can you tell me—”

  Whoever it was, they didn’t look at her, just shook their head, hastened their steps, then turned and headed down a side street. Ahead, though, there were lights showing higher up. A bigger building. Lights. People. She was coming into the downtown—a downtown, surely. Some more commercial area. She was shivering now despite the coat, and she kept running, trying to ignore the pain from her toes and not able to.

  It was a hotel, she saw once she was there. A heavy, old-fashioned glass door with a huge brass handle. Black and white squares of linoleum, and a wooden counter with a man behind it, all of it shabby and very nearly dirty.

  “Excuse me,” she said, when she’d dripped her way across to the counter with the man eyeing her without enthusiasm the whole way. “May I use a phone?”

  “No public phone,” he said. “Stand back from the desk. You’re getting it wet.”

  “Please,” she said. “I left mine at home, and I’m from . . . from Australia. I just got here. I’m lost.” Her teeth were chattering more now that she was out of the cold, her nose was running, her throat had closed up, and when she pushed her hood back, the front of her hair dripped cold water down her face.

  “Sorry,” he said, and didn’t sound it. “No public phone. No public restroom, either, since you’re about to ask.”

  A voice from behind Willow. A bigger man, in camo-print pants and a khaki jacket, with a brown beard all the way down his neck and a black watch cap covering a mop of hair that blended with the beard. He said, “For Christ’s sake, Mac, let her use the phone. You get off on being a jerk?”

  The man behind the counter, whose narrow jaw and beady eyes made him look like a weasel, said, “It’s the rules.” Stiffly.

  Oh, Willow remembered. Wallet. She fumbled off her soaking-wet leather gloves, reached into her coat pocket with fingers that were almost too numb to feel, pulled out a few notes, and set them on the counter. They were all the same size and color, and telling them apart in her befogged state was taking her a minute. “How much for a call?” she asked. “How much to ring for a taxi?”

  Mac’s skinny hand snaked out and grabbed one of the bills before she could see the number on it, then shoved a grubby beige instrument across the desk at her. “One call,” he said. “Local.”

  Her hand stilled on the receiver. She didn’t know Brett’s number. Whose number did she know by heart? Her aunt and uncle’s, which was the last thing from local. She focused hard. She needed a taxi, if she knew how you rang for a taxi here, but Rat Man probably wouldn’t tell her.

  It was exactly like surfing, that was all. No room for panic when things turned to custard. The sea didn’t forgive weakness. You focused on the moment. Start again, Brett would say. Start from here. Same thing. She pressed the phone’s buttons fast, before Rat Man could object.

  It just rang. Of course it did. Hollywood stars didn’t answer calls from strange numbers. She waited impatiently until she heard, “Leave a message, please.” Not in Rafe’s voice. In Lily’s. More layers of privacy protection.

  “It’s Willow,” she said. “Ring me back at this number. Please, Rafe. It’s an . . . an emergency.” She hung up the phone, but kept her hand on the receiver. Rat Man said, “I said one call,” and she ignored him. And when the phone finally rang, she picked it up fast.

  “Rafe?” she asked. Please be Rafe. I’m lost.

  “Tell me how bad an emergency.” Rafe all the way.

  “Uh . . .” Her voice was shaking, and she did her best to control it. “Could you ring Brett, please? Do you or Lily have his mobile number?”

  “Somebody will. Why? What’s going on?”

  She stuck her elbow on the counter and rested her head on her hand. She wished Rat Guy wasn’t listening. “Tell him I’m in the . . . the . . . I’m, uh . . .” Oh, crikey, but did she ever have to pee all of a sudden. She was nearly dancing.

  The fella in the fatigues had come closer. Probably too close, especially since he smelled like cigarettes and unwashed clothes, but he didn’t feel dangerous. Either her sensors were frozen, or he actually wasn’t dangerous. “The Palisade,” he said.

  “The Palisade,” she repeated. “Hotel. In, uh . . .” She couldn’t remember.

  “Portland,” the big fella said.

  “Portland,” she told Rafe. “Here. In the States, I mean. Or . . . just ring a taxi for me instead, and ask them to come? Straight away? I’ve got myself lost, and it’s raining, and this bloke won’t let me make another call, and . . .” She shut her mouth hard on the babbling. “Please.”

  “Hand the phone over to him,” Rafe said. “Now.”

  She held it out. “My cousin wants to talk to you.”

  “Your cousin.” Rat Man looked at her with flat, seen-everything eyes. “Maybe I don’t want to talk to your cousin.”

  “What else do you have to do?” the big bloke asked. “Got a party to go to? Two hookers waiting in the back room with a pile of coke? You took a twenty for
one call. Quit being such an asshole.”

  “I could kick your ass right on out of here,” the weasel said.

  “Yeah, right,” Beardie said. “I’m paid up for the week. You want my key back? Try to take it. She’s scared, man. Talk to the guy.”

  “I’m going to,” the weasel said. “Back off.” At last, he said, “Hello?” into the phone, then listened for a few seconds and said, “Yeah? He better do it, then. I don’t have all night to babysit her.” He slammed the phone down, told Willow, “Hang on,” and headed into the back office, coming out again with a Styrofoam cup of pale brown liquid in one hand and a pink blanket that had definitely seen better days trailing behind him, and thrust both at Willow. “Here. You don’t get to keep the blanket.”

  Driving hurt like hell. Brett didn’t care. He pulled up into a loading zone outside the hotel, got the crutches—he hadn’t trusted the cane in the wet, and his leg felt like it was about to buckle under him—and headed through rain that had turned to sleet, then into the lobby of one of the sorriest fleabag hotels he’d ever seen.

  She was sitting beside a big, bearded guy, across the lobby, in a chair of the type people tossed in Dumpsters and other people fished out. Her feet were on the seat, her arms were wrapped around herself, and a pink blanket covered her lower body. Brett headed across to her as fast as the crutches would work, and she stood up like a jack-in-the-box.

  “Hi,” she said, coming across to meet him. “Sorry. I got lost. Your leg’s bad.” She was making a business of folding the grubby blanket, which looked like it carried the germs of a thousand communicable diseases. The edges were brown. Her hair was soaked and messy, her curls were springing up all around her pale face, her nose was red, and she was limping. And he’d never been gladder to see anyone.

  “I heard,” he said, and looked at the guy who’d come with her. Big. Tough. “Who are you?”

  The guy jerked his chin up and said, “Jim Dvorak. Who are you? She’s cold, man. She got lost. Give her a damn break.”

  What the hell? Willow said, “It’s fine. I’m fine. Let’s go.”

  Brett pulled out his wallet, extracted a twenty, held it out, and said, “Thanks for your help.” Rafe had promised money, and debts had to be paid.

  “Excuse me?” Somebody else was charging over, a ratty-looking guy whom Brett hated on sight. “I don’t think so. Who gave her the blanket? Who gave her the coffee? She used the bathroom, too. My bathroom, back in the office, even though I told her it was off limits, and nobody said anything about the bathroom.”

  Willow said, “You only let me use it because I told you I’d take a wee on the floor if you didn’t. And your toilet’s disgusting. Don’t pay him anything, Brett.”

  The guy with the beard—Jim—said, “I don’t want your damn money. I don’t take money for sitting with somebody who’s cold and scared and lost.” He told Willow, “You can do better.”

  The counter guy said, “I was promised twenty bucks. Without the bathroom.”

  “She paid you twenty bucks,” Jim shot back.

  “For the phone,” the ratty guy said.

  Willow put her hands over her ears and screamed. It was so unexpected and so loud, it just about knocked Brett over. Everybody stopped talking, and Willow snatched the twenty from Brett’s hand, gave it to Rat Boy, thrust the blanket at him, and said, “There. We’re done. Clean your bathroom. You’re going to spread polio.” She yanked her wallet out of her coat pocket with trembling fingers, extracted everything in it, U.S. and Australian currency alike, and stuffed it into Jim’s hand. “This isn’t a payoff,” she told him. “It’s a thank-you. You were kind. I appreciate it. Buy yourself a beer.”

  He held the money out away from his body. “I don’t drink. And I don’t panhandle.”

  Willow put a hand on his arm. “Please. Take it. I was pretty shaken up. I appreciated your help, and you waiting with me.”

  Brett told Rat Boy, “Go away.” He added, when the guy bristled, “Or I’ll take back the twenty.”

  “Want to try?” Rat Boy said.

  “Yeah,” Jim said. “We both want to try.”

  Rat Boy made the prudent decision to withdraw. He muttered something under his breath as he went. Probably “Assholes.”

  Since Brett was feeling like an asshole, he didn’t argue. Instead, he focused on Jim. Desert camo fatigues. Khaki jacket. Worn leather boots that had probably been issued on the same day as the rest of his gear. He said, “I owe you one. Thanks.”

  “No problem.” Jim still looked wary, and he still hadn’t put Willow’s money away.

  “Do you need a job?” Brett asked. “If you do, I might be able to hook you up.”

  Jim stared at him. “Hell, yeah, I need a job.”

  “You don’t drink. Can you pass a drug test?”

  Jim’s beard bristled, and he breathed in through his mouth and said, “Yeah. A hundred sixty- eight days sober. One day at a time.”

  “Are the fatigues Army?”

  “Two tours in Afghanistan. Out eight months. Shoulda stayed in. Couldn’t stand to stay in.”

  “Honorably discharged? Felony record?”

  Some more breathing. “Yeah. And no.”

  “Can you prove it?”

  “Brett,” Willow said, but Jim shook his head at her and said, “Yeah, I can prove it.”

  “Right.” Brett pulled a card out of his wallet and handed it over. “Call this woman tomorrow. After ten, so I can let her know you’ll be calling. She’ll find you something. Security guard, probably. Janitor, worst case.”

  Jim took the card. “I’ll take either one.”

  “Use the money to get a haircut and a shave,” Brett said. “And to buy a pair of civilian work pants at the thrift store, if you want a better shot at the security guard idea. Use the Laundromat. After that—you have to show up, and you have to do the job. You don’t, and you’re out again.”

  “I can do the job,” Jim said. He didn’t say, “Thanks.” But then, Brett hadn’t expected him to.

  Brett stuck his hand out, and Jim looked at it for a minute, then clasped it hard before he let go. Brett said, “Thanks for sitting with her, man. And you’re right. I was an asshole.”

  It was even colder outside, Brett wasn’t walking well at all, and the rain was . . . worse. The rain was terrible. Willow said, “It’s raining ice. How can that even be a thing? It’s horrible.”

  He didn’t say anything. He was heading around the car, and she took the opportunity to climb into the driver’s seat and punch the starter. He hesitated a moment, then climbed in on the passenger side and said, “I was driving.”

  “You were hurting. Where’s the heat?”

  He flipped switches, and she pulled out into traffic and said, “Bugger. I just realized I’m driving on the right. Oh, bugger, bugger, bugger.”

  He laughed, and something in her chest, which had been tight ever since she’d seen his stony face come through the smeared glass door, relaxed. He said, “I wondered. The location of the driver’s seat might have tipped you off.”

  “You’re cool, mate,” she muttered. “I’m closing my eyes until it’s over.”

  “No, you’re not. If you want to pull over and let me drive, though, go ahead.”

  “No. Sometime has to be the first. May as well be when I’m rocked off my pins anyway. Direct me, though. And tell me I don’t have to do it for long. How far did I get? I had no clue where I was, except that I didn’t seem to be getting any closer to the posh part of town.”

  “Less than a mile. Call it one and a half kilometers. Turn left at the light. You’ll want to wait for the green arrow. Left is the complicated turn when you drive on the right.”

  “One and a half kilometers? I got a blister the size of a dollar coin on the tops of my toes for one and a half kilometers? You mean I could have avoided the plague blanket and the Ebola toilet, not to mention having to be rescued by three men?”

  “That’s about the size of it. You must have w
alked in circles. Next time you run away from home, take your phone, would you? Turn left again up here on Everett, then your third right, and the garage will be on your left. You scared me.”

  She followed his directions, tried to believe that she wasn’t going to scrape the sides of the parked cars to her right, jumped at the blast from a car horn to her left—she’d crossed the line, apparently—headed down a parking ramp with a silent prayer of relief, pulled into the spot he pointed out, and let out her breath.

  She finally realized what he’d said. “I did?”

  “You did. I thought something had happened to you. I wanted to go look for you, but I didn’t know where to look.” He reached for his crutches and climbed out, and she came around the car fast, in case he needed a shoulder. He didn’t look steady at all. Her toes might hurt, but his whole body did, and his voice had been too tight when he’d said that.

  In the lift, she said, “Thanks for the coat. Saved me from becoming an ice block myself.”

  “Not at all.”

  When the doors opened, he swung himself down to the door of his loft with what she knew was pure willpower. Inside it, he started to sit on the bench by the door, but she touched his arm and said, “No. Come upstairs and let me help with your shoes. And everything else.”

  He looked up at her, and for once, she could read him perfectly. Surprise, and wariness, and so much fatigue. “You want to talk, though,” he said. “I know we have to talk.”

  She laughed. How could she help it? And got more surprise for that. “Mate. You say it like, ‘You want to eat ground glass. I know we have to eat glass.’”

  Now, he smiled. Slowly, and her heart squeezed within her, the tenderness trying to take her over.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Let’s take a shower first. I’m freezing, and you’re worse. We’ll feel like talking later.”

  He wanted so many things. His mind was still all about that quick release, especially when she took off her coat and unzipped her boots. His body, though, wasn’t cooperating. He actually wasn’t sure he’d make it up the staircase, and he was breathing hard and biting back a groan by the time he made it into the master bedroom.