Deadly Gamble

by Linda Lael Miller

  I made up my mind to call the food-delivery service, at some point in the near future, and complain about their personnel. So what if the food was free? I hadn’t ordered it, or the attitude.

  I took the chain off and grabbed the stupid box.

  By now, Tucker was in the shower, naked and lathered and sleek.

  “Thanks for nothing,” I told the kid, “and tell your boss to take me off the phone list.”

  “Whatever,” the kid snapped.

  I slammed the door.

  I didn’t bother to carry the free chow mein as far as the kitchen. I set the box on the coffee table with a thump and headed for the bathroom.

  I’d promised myself I wouldn’t succumb to Tucker’s charms, and there were all kinds of reasons to support that decision—his ex-wife, his crazy job, my own history of poor taste in men—but this was elemental. Until I’d walked into the kitchen that morning and found him standing there with a box of doughnuts, and even for a few minutes after that, I’d half believed he was dead.

  Bert had nearly died the night before, and life seemed terribly tenuous.

  I needed to celebrate, even though I knew I would probably regret the decision later.

  When I burst through the bathroom door Tucker was out of the shower, clean and gloriously male. He gave me a devilish grin and held out his arms.

  “Wait,” I said.

  He cocked an eyebrow. “What?”

  “I have to brush my teeth.”

  Tucker stood close behind me while I dabbed paste onto the old bristles, scrubbed and foamed. He lifted my T-shirt, laid his hands on either side of my waist, and slid them down into my sweatpants, over my hipbones.

  I nearly choked on my toothpaste.

  I bent to spit and rinse, and when I did, I came into direct contact with Tucker’s erection. I straightened again, with a gasp.

  He chuckled and eased me back against him. At the same time, he slipped a finger into the moist curls between my legs and teased me until I groaned, my head resting against his shoulder.

  “We—shouldn’t—do—this,” I said, knowing all the while that we would.

  Tucker nibbled at my earlobe. “Umm-hmmm,” he agreed.

  I turned to face him, wrapped my arms around his neck, looked up into his eyes. “I thought you were dead,” I told him. His hands were up under my T-shirt now; his thumbs grazed my bare nipples.

  “So you said,” he murmured, and nibbled at my mouth.

  “No, I mean really dead—”

  Tucker hoisted me off my feet, and if I’d been the kind of woman who worries about such things, I might have been embarrassed at the way I automatically wrapped both legs around his hips.

  “You’re about to find out how really not dead I am,” he said.

  Fortunately, the bed wasn’t far away; Tucker made the trek with me entwined around him, and we fell to the mattress together. The bedsprings creaked so loudly that I was glad Bad-Ass Bert’s was closed until further notice; I wasn’t tracking at the moment, or I would have been ashamed of such a thought, given what had happened.

  Tucker was lying on top of me, and this was one of those times where there wasn’t going to be any foreplay. He felt so good, everywhere we were touching, and the way he kept kissing me almost brought on the big O well before the fact.

  He sampled my breasts, simultaneously tugging down my sweatpants, and I was beyond ready for him when he suddenly lifted his head and looked into my eyes. “I didn’t bring—”

  “I don’t care,” I said.

  Tucker came into me with a long, hard thrust of his hips.

  My eyes rolled back; damn it, I was coming. Already. My entire body seized around him, buckling with a release so sudden and so ferocious that I couldn’t even cry out. I was too busy falling apart.

  Forget the long, slow build—I’d been working on that ever since the last time we’d made love, more than three weeks before.

  Tucker was a man focused on the job at hand; his body moved rhythmically on and within mine. I was already starting another climb, and when I could focus again, I noticed the half smile quirking his mouth. He was taking his time, shifting his hips slightly, from side to side.

  The friction was delicious.

  I clawed at his back. “Oh, damn, Tuck—”

  “Slow and easy, babe,” he rasped.

  I exploded again three seconds later, and when I came out of the daze, breathless and slick with perspiration, he was still setting his own pace.

  We climaxed together the next time, and it was so intense, so powerful, that I yelled. Tucker went deep, and closed his eyes, and I saw the muscles tighten in his face.

  I don’t know how long we lay there, when it was over, cross-wise on the bed, our arms and legs entangled, our bodies still joined. Presently, Tucker rolled to one side and fell asleep. I forgave him, since he’d been working undercover for days and he’d just given me the ride of my life.

  I kissed him on the forehead, covered him by doubling the bedspread back, and got up. I didn’t sleep after sex; it always energized me.

  I took a quick shower, put on jeans and a tank top and started for my computer, intending do a little Googling on the list of names Greer had given me the night before.

  The first thing I saw was the chow mein box, lying open on the floor. Before I could get mad about the mess, I spotted Russell. He was full out on his right side, and he was way too still.

  Alarm—the instinctive kind—clenched at my insides like a fist made of cold steel, and for a second or so, I couldn’t move at all. “Russell?” I whispered, and that broke my inertia; I dropped to my knees beside him, much the way I’d done with his master the night before, under the pool table. “Russell!”

  He didn’t lift his head, but he did raise one eyelid.

  “Tucker!” I shrieked. “Tucker, come quick, there’s something wrong with Russell!”

  Tucker appeared in less than a minute, jeans fastened, tugging on his shirt. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know!” I cried. “I just came out here and found him like this—”

  Tucker went back to the bedroom, returned in a flash with a blanket. He dropped to one knee, wrapped Russell, and got to his feet again. “Come on, Mojo,” he said. “We’ve got to get him to the vet.”

  I nodded, grabbed my purse, pulled out my car keys.

  “You’d better drive,” Tucker told me.

  I couldn’t think. Which vet? Where? I was beside myself.

  I did the only sensible thing, and that was panic.

  We got downstairs to the Volvo, somehow, and I took the wheel.

  Quietly, Tucker directed me to turn left out of the parking lot. We passed several restaurants.

  “Right at the light,” Tucker said.

  “Where are we going?” I asked, none too calmly.

  “Just keep driving,” he answered, cradling the blanket-bundled Russell as gently as he would a feverish child.

  We’d probably traveled three miles when Tucker indicated the next turn, through a gate and up a long driveway toward a large Territorial-style house.

  “Go around back,” Tucker instructed.

  I did what he said.

  “Okay, you can stop,” he told me. He got out of the car, still carrying Russell, and strode toward a long, low building of white stucco.

  I caught up with him just as a long-legged woman in boots, jeans and a fitted western shirt came through a screened door to meet us. She had lush brown hair, piled on top of her head, and a stethoscope dangled from her neck.

  “Allison,” Tucker said, “this dog is sick as hell. I think he might have been poisoned.”

  Allison.

  Our gazes collided, and mine glanced off first, to land on a neatly lettered wooden sign hanging beside the door she had just stepped through.

  Allison Darroch, DVM.

  “Bring him inside,” she said. She gave me another glance, then let Tucker move past her, into the clinic. She entered next, and I was right b
ehind her.

  Tucker laid Russell gently on a shining steel examining table.

  Allison unwrapped the dog from the blanket, clicked on a penlight plucked from her shirt pocket, lifted one of his eyelids, and peered in. “Do you know what he ingested?” she asked, just as if it weren’t perfectly obvious, from his clothes and mussed up hair, that Tucker and I had crawled out of the same bed within the last half hour.

  Tucker glanced questioningly at me.

  “Chow mein, I think,” I said.

  Allison popped Russell’s mouth open, stuck her nose in, and sniffed.

  “I’m going to induce vomiting,” she decided. “You might want to step outside.”

  Tears stung the backs of my eyes. I sniffled. “I can’t leave him.”

  Allison turned to Tucker, and something passed between them. Their faces were grim and still.

  Tucker turned, crossed the room to me, caught me firmly by one elbow, and ushered me outside.

  I tried to get back in.

  He restrained me.

  “Allison is a good vet, Mojo,” he told me. “If anything can be done for the dog, she’ll do it.”

  “Dad!” Two voices called, at the same time, mingling and yet clearly separate.

  I turned and saw the twins barreling across the yard. The little boy, Danny, wore jeans and a T-shirt, the little girl, Daisy, had on a pink leotard, tights, and a tutu. They launched themselves at Tucker, and he crouched and caught them with the ease of long practice, one in each arm.

  I bit down hard on my lower lip.

  I felt like a home wrecker, watching that scene.

  A home wrecker and a lousy dog-sitter, too.

  “Who’s that lady?” Daisy asked, looking up at me. “And why is she crying?”

  Tucker stood, slipped an arm loosely around my shoulders. “This is Mojo,” he said. “She’s a very good friend of mine, and she’s crying because her dog is real sick.”

  Shyly, Daisy took my hand. “Don’t worry,” she told me. “Mom is the best vet in Arizona. She’ll make him better.”

  My heart turned over. “Thanks,” I said.

  “Mojo is a weird name,” Danny observed, squinting as he checked me out. “What kind of name is Mojo?”

  “A weird one,” I answered.

  “I might be late for dance class,” Daisy announced. “There’s a birthday party afterward, and I have a present.”

  I looked desperately to Tucker.

  “You’ll make it,” he told his daughter.

  “Mom was going to drive me over as soon as she finished checking on the sleepover patients,” Daisy went on. Her aspect was sunny, without a trace of petulance. “Are you finished with the job where you had to be dead, Dad?”

  Tucker adjusted the beaded tiara atop her head. The gesture was so gentle that it made my throat ache. “I’m finished with the job where I had to be dead,” he confirmed.

  Danny huffed out a sigh. “It was hard not to tell,” he said manfully. “But Mom said we had to zip our lips or else.”

  Tucker grinned wanly. “I appreciate that,” he said.

  The screen door creaked, and Allison appeared in the opening, wiping her hands on a white towel.

  “You can see the big fella now,” she told me. “He ought to stay overnight, though. So my assistant and I can keep an eye on him.”

  I nodded. “Thank you,” I said, and I meant it.

  She stepped back to let me pass, and I hurried inside. Russell was still on the steel table, but now he had an IV going, and a young girl in jeans and a pink scrub shirt stood beside him, stroking his quivering side.

  She smiled at me. “He’ll be all right,” she said. “What’s his name?”

  “Russell,” I answered.

  I moved around the table, so I could look Russell in the face. His hound-dog eyes looked bleary, but I’d swear he tried to smile at me.

  “He was a pretty sick guy,” the girl said. “You sure brought him to the right vet, though. Dr. Allison is the best.”

  I nodded, stroking Russell’s silky ear. The other one stuck out under his head, like a jaunty wing, pink and tender. “You’re going to be okay, buddy,” I told him. “But you’ve gotta do a sleepover.”

  “We’ll take good care of Russell,” Allison’s assistant promised. I looked for a nametag, and didn’t see one.

  She smiled. “I’m Bethany,” she said.

  “Mojo,” I answered.

  If Bethany thought my name was weird, she didn’t say so. She just smiled again. “I’ll put Russell into a kennel, make sure he’s comfortable, and then I’ll get your phone number, so we can call when he’s ready to come home.”

  I leaned down and kissed the dog on top of the head.

  Bethany maneuvered Russell easily onto a gurney, managing his IV line and the rolling pole without a hitch, and wheeled him into a back room.

  I stayed where I was, not wanting to go outside, because I knew Allison and Tucker were talking—I could hear the low murmur of their voices. There was no yelling, but the sounds had a parrying quality. I expected the clink of sword blades at any moment.

  Bethany reappeared, with a clipboard in hand. I gave her my contact information, realized I’d left my purse in the car.

  “I’ll just get my checkbook—” I said, but the sentence fell apart, because I did not want to walk out there and get caught in the middle of whatever was going on between Tucker and Allison.

  “We’ll bill you,” Bethany said cheerfully. “Or you can pay tomorrow, when you come to pick Russell up.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  The screen door opened, and Allison stepped in. She’d just saved my friend’s dog and I was grateful, but I knew I was about as welcome on her property as a rabid bat.

  She skewered me with a glance, then shifted her attention to Bethany, smiling like a sitcom mom. “I’m taking Daisy to dance class, and then to Gillian Pellway’s birthday party,” she said. “Danny’s coming with us. Call my cell if there’s a problem.”

  “I will,” Bethany promised. Her smile faltered a little as her eyes moved from Allison to me and back again.

  “Thank you for looking after Russell,” I told Allison. I didn’t put out my hand, because I knew she wouldn’t take it.

  Allison nodded, but she didn’t speak.

  She turned and went outside, and the screen door slammed smartly behind her.

  Bethany gave me a thoughtful look. “I’ll call about Russell,” she said.

  I thanked her, for probably the fortieth time and, hearing an engine start up outside, followed by the crunch of wheels on gravel, I took my leave.

  Allison and the kids were heading down the driveway in a late-model truck, built for off-road travel, leaving a plume of dust behind. Tucker stood in the yard, hands on his hips, watching them go.

  I couldn’t speak, looking at him. There was real despair in the way he stood, even though his shoulders were squared and his spine was straight.

  He finally turned his head, saw me standing there in the stay-at-home clothes I’d pulled on after he’d made love to me. My hair was frizzed from the shower, I was wearing my Sponge-Bob slippers, and I hadn’t bothered with a bra.

  “Hey,” he said, and smiled a little, but it was a sad smile. The kind that makes you feel worse, not better.

  “Hey,” I replied weakly.

  Tucker thrust out a sigh, ran one hand through his hair. He’d never combed it, after his shower, and then we’d gone to bed. The kids were too young to know, but Allison must have put the pieces together at the first glance. “I left my cell phone here,” he said, starting toward the back door of the house. “Want to come in?”

  I shook my head, feeling numb. I didn’t belong in that house, where Tucker and Allison and the kids had lived together, a regular family. Where they’d decorated Christmas trees and celebrated birthdays and laughed at each other’s jokes.

  When, I wondered, had the laughter stopped?

  I felt homeless in that moment, as tho
ugh I didn’t belong anywhere, as though I were a stranger in the universe, or someone who had sneaked in from a lesser dimension without buying a ticket.

  Tucker stood watching me for a few seconds, and I knew he wanted to say something, and that he wouldn’t.

  He went inside. I headed for the Volvo and slipped into the driver’s seat. Waited there until he turned up.

  I started the car.

  “Moje,” Tucker began.

  “It’s okay, Tucker.”

  “No,” he said. “It isn’t. I should have warned you that we were coming here, prepared you to meet Allison, but you were so upset about the dog—”

  “I’m grateful—to you and to Allison. Please, Tucker—just let it go at that, all right?”

  “Moje—”

  “Please?”

  “Okay.”

  We turned back onto the main road, toward Cave Creek. Neither of us spoke until we pulled into Bert’s parking lot, and I stopped the Volvo within a few yards of Tucker’s Harley.

  He was looking at the sign painted on the side of the weathered, rustic building. “Welcome to Bad-Ass Bert’s,” he read aloud. Then he sighed heavily. “Guess he’s not such a bad-ass, after all.”

  “It would have killed me to tell Bert his dog was dead,” I said. “He trusted me.”

  Tucker didn’t speak. His jaw was set in a hard line, though, and I knew his mind was working.

  I couldn’t stand the silence. “Maybe you should go home.”

  Tucker met my gaze. “The chow mein,” he said. “Where did you get it?”

  I drew in a sharp breath. Some P.I. I was going to make—I didn’t put the pieces together until that moment. Tucker, on the other hand, was a professional, and he’d probably been processing the information from the moment he’d noticed the food on the floor—as he surely had, being a keen-eyed detective type—and the dog lying almost comatose.

  I was just now catching up. Russell must have knocked the box off the coffee table, in his never-ending search for pepperoni and frankfurters, and then scarfed down some of the chow mein. I didn’t need the cast of CSI to tell me the grub had been poisoned, and Russell wasn’t the intended target.

  I was the one meant to bite the dirt, not the basset hound.

  “Moje?” Tucker prompted. I guess he must have been tired of waiting for me to hook up all the links.