by Nora Roberts
I’m going home to see if I can work off some of those mashed potatoes and gravy.”
“You never put on an ounce. It makes me sick.” She heaped leftovers into a Tupperware container. “Why don’t you tell me more about this gorgeous landlord of yours?”
“She’s not gorgeous. She’s okay.”
“Brent said gorgeous.” Mary Pat sent her husband a narrow look. He only lifted his shoulders. “Sexy, too.”
“That’s because she gave him cookies.”
“If she’s Lea Bradshaw’s sister, she must be more than okay.” Mary Pat filled another container with generous slices of pie. “Lea’s stunning—even first thing in the morning with a bunch of squalling kids in the car. The parents are actors, you know. Theater,” Mary Pat added, giving the word a dramatic punch. “I’ve seen the mother, too.” She rolled her eyes. “I’d like to look like that when I grow up.”
“You look fine, hon,” Brent assured her.
“Fine.” Shaking her head, Mary Pat sealed the containers.
“Does he say gorgeous? Does he say sexy?”
“I’ll say it.”
“Thank you, Jed. Why don’t you bring the landlord over sometime? For dinner, or drinks?”
“I pay her rent; I don’t socialize with her.”
“You chased a bad guy for her,” Mary Pat pointed out.
“That was reflex. I gotta go.” He gathered up the food she’d pressed on him. “Thanks for dinner.”
With her arm hooked around Brent’s waist, Mary Pat waved goodbye to Jed’s retreating headlights. “You know, I might just drop by that shop.”
“You mean snoop around, don’t you?”
“Whatever it takes.” She leaned her head against his shoulder. “I’d like to get a look at this gorgeous, sexy, single landlord of his.”
“He won’t appreciate it.”
“We’ll see. He needs someone in his life.”
“He needs to come back to work.”
“So we’ll double-team him.” She turned, lifting her mouth for a kiss. “He won’t have a chance.”
In LA Finley dined on pressed duck and quail eggs. Joining him in his mammoth dining room was a stunning blonde, green-eyed, slenderly built. She spoke three languages and had an excellent knowledge of art and literature. In addition to her beauty and intelligence, she was nearly as wealthy as Finley. His ego demanded all three attributes in a companion.
As she sipped her champagne, he opened the small, elegantly wrapped box she’d brought.
“So thoughtful of you, my dear.” He set the lid aside, pausing in anticipation.
“I know how you enjoy beautiful things, Edmund.”
“Indeed I do.” He flattered her with a warm look before reaching into the tissue paper. He lifted out a small ivory carving of a kirin, cradling it gently, lovingly in his palm. His deep, appreciative sigh whispered on the air.
“You admire it every time you dine with me, so I thought it would be the perfect Christmas gift.” Pleased with his reaction, she laid her hand over his. “It seemed more personal to give you something from my own collection.”
“It’s exquisite.” His eyes gleamed as he studied it. “And, as you told me, one of a kind.”
“Actually, it seems I was mistaken about that.” She picked up her glass again and missed the sudden spasm in his fingers. “I was able to obtain its twin a few weeks ago.” She laughed lightly. “Don’t ask me how, as it came from a museum.”
“It’s not unique.” His pleasure vanished like smoke, replaced by the bitter fire of disappointment. “Why would you assume I would wish for something common?”
The change in tone had her blinking in surprise. “Edmund, it’s still what it is. A beautiful piece of exceptional workmanship. And extremely valuable.”
“Value is relative, my dear.” As he watched her, cooleyed, his fingers curled around the delicate sculpture. Tighter, tighter, until the carving snapped with a sound like a gunshot. When she cried out in distress, he smiled again. “It seems to be damaged. What a pity.” He set the broken pieces aside, picked up his wine. “Of course, if you were to give me the piece from your collection, I would truly value it. It is, after all, one of a kind.”
CHAPTER
EIGHT
When Jed knocked on Dora’s door a little after nine on the day after Christmas, the last thing he expected was to hear a man’s voice saying wait a damn minute.
There was a thud, a curse.
Will, a flowered sheet wrapped around his thin frame like a toga, and favoring the toe he’d smashed against the Pembroke table, opened the door to an unfriendly sneer.
“If you’re selling anything,” he said, “I hope it’s coffee.”
She sure could pick them, Jed thought nastily. First a pin-striped accountant with overactive glands, now a skinny kid barely out of college.
“Isadora,” Jed said, and showed his teeth.
“Sure.” Mindful of the trailing sheet, Will moved back so that Jed could step inside. “Where the hell is she?” he muttered. “Dora!” His voice echoed richly off the walls and ceiling.
The kid had lungs, Jed decided, then noticed, intrigued, the tangle of pillows and blankets on the sofa.
“You’re not getting in here until I dry my hair.” Dora stepped out of the bathroom, dressed in a terrycloth robe and armed with a hand-held hair dryer. “You can just—oh.” She stopped, spotting Jed. “Good morning.”
“I need to talk to you for a minute.”
“All right.” She combed her fingers through her damp hair. “You met my brother?”
Brother, Jed thought, annoyed with himself for the quick, unquashable sense of relief. “No.”
“The guy in the sheet is Will. Will, the guy who needs a shave is Jed, from across the hall.”
“The ex-cop who chased off the burglar.” Will’s sleep-glazed eyes cleared. “Nice to meet you. I played a drug dealer once, in a Sly Stallone film? Got killed in the first reel, but it was a great experience.”
“I bet.”
“Here.” Dora passed Will the hair dryer. “You can use the shower. I’ll make the coffee, but you have to make breakfast.”
“Deal.” He headed off, trailing flowered sheets.
“My mother thought I needed a man in the house after the break-in,” Dora explained. “Will was the only one available. We can talk in the kitchen.”
It was the same efficient galley setup as his own, but was obviously more well used, and certainly more organized. She chose what Jed now recognized as a biscuit tin and scooped coffee beans out and into a grinder before she spoke again.
“So how was your Christmas?”
“Fine. I’ve got a guy coming by around noon to hook up a new security system. One that works.”
Dora paused. The scent of ground coffee and her shower filled the room and made Jed’s juices swim. “Excuse me?”
“He’s a friend of mine. He knows what he’s doing.”
“A friend,” she repeated, going back to her grinding.
“First, I must say I’m amazed you have any. Second, I suppose you expect me to be grateful for your incredible gall.”
“I live here, too. I don’t like being shot at.”
“You might have discussed it with me.”
“You weren’t around.” He waited while she put a kettle on to boil. “You need a couple of real locks on the doors. I can pick them up at the hardware.”
With her lips pursed in thought, Dora measured coffee into a filtered cone. “I’m debating whether to be amused, annoyed or impressed.”
“I’ll bill you for the locks.”
That decided her. Her lips curved up, then the smile turned into a quick, throaty laugh. “Okay, Skimmerhorn. You go ahead and make our little world safe and sound. Anything else?”
“I figured I might measure for those shelves you want.”
She ran her tongue around her teeth, reached around him for the wicker basket of oranges. “Getting tired of being a m
an of leisure?” When he said nothing, she sliced through an orange with a wicked-looking knife. “I’ll show you what I have in mind after breakfast. As it happens, we’re not opening until noon today.” After slicing half a dozen oranges, she put the halves into a clunky-looking device that squeezed out the juice. “Why don’t you set the table?”
“For what?”
“Breakfast. Will makes terrific crepes.” Before he could answer, the kettle shrilled. Dora poured boiling water over the coffee. The smell was all it took.
“Where do you keep your plates?”
“First cupboard.”
“One thing,” he said as he opened the cabinet door. “You might want to put some clothes on.” He sent her a slow smile that had her throat clicking shut. “The sight of your damp, half-naked body might send me into a sexual frenzy.”
It didn’t amuse her at all to have her own words tossed back in her face. Dora poured herself a cup of coffee and walked away.
“Smells good,” Will decided, strolling in now wearing black jeans and a sweater. His hair, a few shades lighter than Dora’s, had been blow-dried into artful disarray. He looked like an ad for Ralph Lauren. “Dora makes great coffee. Hey, would you mind switching on the tube? CNN, maybe. I haven’t heard what’s happening out there for a couple of days.” Will poured both himself and Jed a cup before rolling up his sleeves.
“Damn you, Will!”
Dora’s voice made her brother wince, grin. “I forgot to wash out the sink,” he explained to Jed. “She really hates to find shaving cream glopped in it.”
“I’ll keep that in mind if it ever becomes an issue.”
“It’s all right for her to hang underwear everyplace though.” He pitched his voice to carry out of the kitchen and through the bathroom door, adding just a dollop of sarcasm for flavor. “Growing up with two sisters, I never went into the bathroom without fighting my way through a jungle of panty hose.”
While he spoke, Will measured ingredients and stirred with careless finesse. He caught Jed’s eye and grinned again. “We’re all great cooks,” he said. “Lea, Dora and me. It was self-defense against years of takeout and TV dinners. So about this burglary thing.” Will went on without breaking stride. “Do you think it’s anything to worry about?”
“I always worry when somebody shoots at me. I’m funny that way.”
“Shoot?” Will’s hand hovered an inch above the edge of the bowl, the egg he’d just cracked dripping inside. “What do you mean ‘shoot’?”
“A gun. Bullets.” Jed sipped his coffee. “Bang.”
“Jesus, Jesus. She didn’t say anything about shooting.” Still carrying the dripping eggshell, he dashed into the living room and down the short hall and jerked open the bathroom door.
Dora nearly poked her eye out with her eyeliner. “Damn it, Will.”
“You didn’t say anything about shooting. Christ, Dory, you made it sound like a joke.”
She sighed, tapped the eye pencil on the lip of the pedestal sink and gave Jed a hard stare over Will’s shoulder. She should have looked silly with one eye lined and the other naked. Instead she looked sulky, sexy and steamed.
“Thanks loads, Skimmerhorn.”
“Anytime, Conroy.”
“Don’t blame him.” Incensed, Will took Dora by the shoulders and shook. “I want to know exactly what happened. And I want to know now.”
“Then ask the big-nosed cop.” She gave Will a shove. “I’m busy,” she said, and shut the bathroom door, deliberately turned the lock.
“Isadora, I want answers.” Will hammered on the door. “Or I’m calling Mom.”
“You do, and I’ll tell her about your weekend on Long Island with the stripper.”
“Performance artist,” he muttered, but turned toward Jed. “You,” he said, “you fill me in while I finish making breakfast.”
“There’s not that much to tell.” There was a sick feeling in Jed’s gut. It didn’t come from running over the events of Christmas Eve while Will whipped up apple crepes. It came from watching the brother and sister together, in seeing the concern and anger on Will’s face—emotions that came from a deeply rooted love, not simply from family loyalty.
“And that’s it?” Will demanded.
“What?” Jed forced himself back to the present.
“That’s it? Some joker breaks in, messes with the files, takes a couple of potshots at you and runs away.”
“More or less.”
“Why?”
“That’s what the police are paid to find out.” Jed helped himself to a second cup of coffee. “Look, there’s a new security system going in this afternoon. And new locks. She’ll be safe enough.”
“What kind of a cop were you?” Will asked. “A beat type, a narc, what?”
“That’s irrelevant, isn’t it? I’m not a cop now.”
“Yeah, but . . .” Will trailed off, frowning down at the crepes he scooped onto a flower-blue platter. “Skimmerhorn? That’s what she called you, right? Kind of name sticks in the mind. I remember something from a few months ago. I’m a news junkie.” Will rattled it around in his mind, as he might lines long ago memorized. “Captain, right? Captain Jedidiah Skimmerhorn. You’re the one who blew away Donny Speck, the drug lord. ‘Millionaire cop in shoot-out with drug baron,’ ” Will remembered. “You made a lot of headlines.”
“And headlines end up lining bird cages.”
Will would have pressed, but he remembered more. The assassination of Captain Skimmerhorn’s sister with a car bomb. “I guess anyone who could take out a top-level creep like Speck ought to be able to look out for my big sister.”
“She can look out for herself,” Dora announced. With a juice pitcher in one hand, Dora answered the ringing kitchen phone. “Hello? Yes, Will’s right here. Just a minute.” Dora fluttered her lashes. “Marlene.”
“Oh.” Will scooped two crepes onto his plate and gathered up his fork. “This might take a while.” After taking the phone from his sister, he leaned against the wall. “Hello, gorgeous.” His voice had dropped in pitch and was as smooth as new cream. “Baby, you know I missed you. I haven’t thought of anything else. When I get back tonight I’ll show you just how much.”
“Sick,” Dora muttered.
“Why didn’t you tell him the whole story?”
Dora shrugged, kept her voice low. “I didn’t see any need to worry my family. They tend to be dramatic under the best of circumstances. If my mother finds out I’ve got a stomach virus, she immediately diagnoses malaria and starts calling specialists. Can you imagine what she’d have done if I’d told her someone shot holes in my wall?”
Jed shook his head, savoring the crepes.
“She’d have called the CIA, hired two bulky bodyguards named Bubba and Frank. As it was, she stuck me with Will.”
“He’s all right,” Jed said just as Will made kissy noises into the phone and hung up. Before he’d taken two steps, the phone rang again.
“Hello.” Will’s eyes gleamed. “Heather, darling. Of course I missed you, baby. I haven’t been able to think of anything else. I’ll get everything straightened out by tomorrow night and show you just how much.”
“Nice touch,” Jed said, and grinned into his coffee.
“You would think so. Since he’s busy making love through AT& T, I’m turning off the television.” She rose and had nearly tapped the Off button when a bulletin stopped her.
“There are still no leads in the Christmas tragedy in Society Hill,” the reporter announced. “Prominent socialite Alice Lyle remains in a coma this morning as a result of an attack during an apparent burglary in her home sometime December twenty-fourth. Mrs. Lyle was found unconscious. Muriel Doyle, Lyle’s housekeeper, was