by Nora Roberts
impressed with my skills as a detective.”
“You’re a real Nancy Drew, Conroy.” He went to the kitchen, took a jug of Gatorade from the fridge and gulped it straight from the bottle. When he lowered it, she was standing in the doorway with a dangerous glint in her eye. “You did okay. The cops just work faster. Did you call it in?”
“No.” Her lip poked out. “I wanted to tell you.”
“Brent’s in charge of the investigation,” Jed reminded her. He reached out and flicked a finger over her bottom lip. “Stop pouting.”
“I’m not. I never pout.”
“With that mouth, baby, you’re the world champ. What did Terri say about DiCarlo?”
“Brent’s in charge of the case,” she said, primly. “I’ll go back to my own apartment and call him. He might appreciate it.”
Jed caught her face in his hand, gave it a little squeeze. “Spill it, Nancy.”
“Well, since you put it that way. She said he was very smooth, very polite.” Moving around Jed, she opened the fridge herself, gave an involuntary and very feminine sound of disgust. “God, Skimmerhorn, what is that thing in the bowl?”
“Dinner. What else did she say?”
“You can’t eat this. I’ll fix dinner.”
“DiCarlo,” Jed said flatly, and took her by the shoulders before she could poke into his cupboards.
“He said he had this aunt he wanted to buy a special gift for. Terri said she showed him the Foo dog—which I’m now sure he helped himself to when he broke in.” She scowled over that a minute. “She said he was a snappy dresser and drove a Porsche.”
He wanted more than that. “Is she downstairs?”
“No, she’s gone for the day. We’re closed.”
“I want to talk to her.”
“Now?”
“Now.”
“Well, sorry, I don’t know where she is now. She had an early dinner date with some new guy she’s seeing.” Dora let out a huff when Jed walked out of the kitchen. “If it’s important, you could catch her at the theater later. Curtain’s at eight. We can grab her for a few minutes backstage between scenes.”
“Fine.”
“But I don’t see what good it would do.” Dora followed him toward the bedroom. “I’ve already talked to her, and we have the name and address.”
“You don’t know the questions to ask.” After stripping off his T-shirt, Jed tossed it into a corner. “He might have said something. The more we know, the easier it’ll be to break him down in interrogation. We’ve got a couple hours if you really want to cook . . .”
But she wasn’t listening. When he turned back, she was standing very still, a hand pressed against her heart and a look of utter shock on her face.
“What?” Instinct had him spinning around, scanning the room through narrowed eyes.
“The bed,” she managed. “Oh . . .”
His tensed muscles relaxed. The quick flutter of embarrassment annoyed the hell out of him. First she criticized his cooking, now his housekeeping. “It’s the maid’s year off.” He frowned at the rumpled sheets and blankets. “I don’t see the point in making it when I’m just going to mess it up again.”
“The bed,” she repeated, reverently. “French Art Nouveau, about nineteen hundred. Oh, look at the inlay.” She knelt by the footboard to run her fingertips gently over the image of a slender woman in a flowing gown holding a pitcher. The sound that came from her throat was one a woman makes in the heat of passion. “It’s rosewood,” she said, and sighed.
Amused, Jed watched her climb onto the bed and examine the headboard on her hands and knees. “Oh, the workmanship here,” she murmured. “Look at this carving.” Lovingly, she caressed the curves. “The delicacy.”
“I think I’ve got a magnifying glass around here,” Jed told her when she all but pressed her nose to the wood.
“You don’t even know what you have here, do you?”
“I know it was one of the few pieces in that mausoleum I grew up in that I liked. Most of the rest’s in storage.”
“Storage.” She closed her eyes and shuddered at the thought. “You have to let me go through what you have.” She sat back on her heels, all but clasped her hands in prayer. “I’ll give you fair market value for whatever I can afford. Just promise me, swear that you won’t go to another dealer until I can make an offer.”
“Pull yourself together, Conroy.”
“Please.” She scrambled to the edge of the bed. “I mean it. I don’t expect favors because of a personal relationship. But if there are things you don’t want.” She looked back at the headboard, rolled her eyes. “God, I can’t stand it. Come here.”
“Uh-oh.” A grin tugged at his mouth. “You’re going to try to seduce me so I’ll lower my price.”
“Seduce, hell.” Her breath had already quickened when she unbuttoned her jacket, peeled it off to reveal a flimsy camisole in the same deep green. “I’m going to give you the ride of your life, buddy.”
“Ah . . .” He wasn’t sure which emotion was uppermost. Shock or arousal. “That’s quite an offer, Conroy.”
“It’s not an offer, pal, it’s a fact.” She rose to her knees to unzip her skirt, wiggled out of it. When she’d finished, she knelt on the bed wearing the camisole, a matching garter belt, sheer black hose and spiked heels. “If I don’t have you on this bed, right now, I’ll die.”
“I don’t want to be responsible for that.” God, his knees were weak. “Conroy, I’m covered with sweat.”
She smiled. “I know.” She made a grab, caught him by the waistband of his shorts. He didn’t put up much of a fight. “You’re about to get a lot sweatier.”
She tugged. Jed let himself be taken down. When she rolled over on top of him, he caught at her hands. “Be gentle with me.”
She laughed. “Not a chance.”
She crushed her mouth to his, nipping his lips apart and plunging in a kiss that erased every rational thought from his mind. Even as he released her hands to hold her, she was pressing down on him, mercilessly rubbing heat to heat.
He pulled in air that did nothing more than clog thickly in his chest. “Dora, let me—”
“Not this time.” Fisting her hands in his hair, she ravished his mouth.
She was rough, relentless, reckless, tormenting him to within an inch of sanity until he didn’t know whether to curse her, or to beg. Sensation after staggering sensation whipped through him leaving his system churning and edgy and desperate for more. His hands streaked under her camisole and he tortured himself with the firm, ripe swell of her breasts.
She arched back at his touch. A low, feline sound of approval purred in her throat as she stripped the material over her head. With her head thrown back, she covered his hands with hers, riding them down over her torso, over her flat belly. Her fingers tightened on his when he drove her over the first, shuddering peak. But when he tried to roll her over, she locked her legs tight around him, laughing huskily at his oath.
She slid down, dug her teeth into his shoulder. He tasted of salt and sweat and hot-blooded male. The combination whirled in her head like a heady wind. He was strong. The muscles under her urgent hands were like rippled iron. But she could draw a breathless, vulnerable moan from him with the dance of her fingers. She could feel his heart thundering under her lips.
He clutched at the smooth flesh over the top of her stockings, too frantic now to think of bruises. Now, at last now, she let him lift her. His vision grayed when she lowered herself onto him, taking steel deep, deep into velvet. Dazed, he watched her body bow back, her eyes closed, her hands sliding up her own sweat-slicked body in an uninhibited caress as she tightened urgently around him.
Then she began to move, slowly at first, steeped in her own pleasure, absorbing shock after delirious shock. Then faster, still faster, the muscles in her thighs taut as wire, her hips rocking like pistons. Each time her body stiffened, the force of it ripped through him like a flame-tipped arrow.
&nb
sp; He reared up, his mouth seeking her breast, her shoulder, her lips. Crazed, he dragged her head back by the hair, ravaging her throat while he made hoarse promises neither of them understood. All he understood was at that moment he would have died for her. He certainly would have killed for her.
The climax pummeled him, a violent and welcome fist that stole his breath and left him staggered. Jed banded his arms around her, pressed his face between her breasts and let it shatter him.
“Dora.” He turned her head so that his lips could cruise gently over her skin. And again. “Dora.” He held her close until her body had ceased to shudder. When he leaned back, his eyes narrowed. Lifting a finger to her cheek, he caught a tear on the tip. “What’s this?”
She could only shake her head and gather him against her. She rested her cheek on his hair. “I thought after yesterday, it wouldn’t get any better. That it couldn’t.”
It worried him, that tremor in her voice. “If I’d known an old bed would turn you into a maniac, I’d have brought you in here days ago.”
She smiled, but her eyes were still troubled. “It’s a terrific bed.”
“I’ve got about six more in storage.”
She laughed. “We’ll kill ourselves.”
“I’ll risk it.”
So would she, Dora thought. So would she. Because Lea had been absolutely right. She was in love with him.
Two hours later they arrived at the Liberty Theater in time to hear Nurse Nellie demonstrate how to wash a man out of her hair. Dora had taken Jed through the stage door and up into the wings. Her father was there, mouthing the lyrics and pantomiming the moves.
“Hey.” Dora pinched his cheek. “Where’s Mom?”
“In Wardrobe. A little problem with Bloody Mary’s sarong. Jed, my boy.” He pumped Jed’s hand while keeping an eye onstage. “Glad you came by. We have an appreciative audience tonight, barely an empty seat in the house. Light cue,” he muttered under his breath, then beamed at the glow of a spot. “A smooth cue is as exhilarating as a waltz.”
“We just dropped by to see how things were,” Dora said, and shot a warning look at Jed. “And I need a minute with Terri at intermission. Shop business.”
“I don’t want you pulling her out of character.”
“Don’t worry.” She slipped an arm around his shoulders and, despite the fact that she’d seen the production countless times, was soon as absorbed in the staging as he.
Jed hung back, more intrigued by Dora and Quentin than the dialogue onstage. Their heads were tilted together as they discussed some minor bit of business that had been added to the scene. Quentin’s arm came up to wrap around her waist; Dora’s body angled toward his.
Jed experienced a sensation that shocked him more than a blow to the neck. It was envy.
Had he ever felt that easy affection, that simple sense of companionship with his own father? he wondered. The answer was very simple and very bleak. No. Never. He couldn’t remember a single conversation that hadn’t been fraught with undercurrents of tension, disillusionment, resentment. Now, even had he wanted to, it was much too late to make peace. It was certainly useless to try to understand why.
When the old bitterness threatened, he walked quietly back toward the dressing rooms. He’d have a cigarette and wait to question Terri.
Dora looked over her shoulder. Her smile faded when she saw he was no longer there.
“Dad?”
“And music,” he whispered. “Good, good. Hmmm?”
“I’m in love with Jed.”
“Yes, my sweet, I know.”
“No, Dad. I’m really in love with him.”
“I know.” For no one else would he have broken his concentration. But he turned to Dora with a twinkling grin. “I picked him for you, didn’t I?”
“I don’t think he’s going to want me to be. Sometimes I can almost see where he’s bleeding inside.”
“You’ll fix that, given time. ‘What wound did ever heal but by degrees?’ ”
“Othello.” She wrinkled her nose. “I didn’t care for the ending in that one.”
“You’ll write your own. Conroys are excellent improvisers.” A thought popped into his brain and made his eyes gleam. “Perhaps you’d like me to give him a little nudge. I could arrange a quiet man-to-man talk, with some of my special brew.”
“No.” She tapped a finger on his nose. “No,” she repeated. “I’ll handle this myself.” Lowering her hand, she pressed it to her jittery stomach. “I’m scared,” she confessed. “It’s happened so fast.”
“In the blood,” Quentin said sagely. “The minute I saw your mother, I broke out in a vicious sweat. Most embarrassing. It took me nearly two weeks to get up the nerve to ask her to marry me. I kept going up on the lines.”
“You never blew a line in your life.” She kissed him as the applause broke out. “I love you.”
“That’s exactly what you should tell him.” He gave her a squeeze. “Listen, Izzy, we’re bringing the house down.”
Responding to the applause, and the sudden chaos backstage, Jed went back to the wings just as Dora caught Terri.
“Hey, you working props tonight?”
“No.” Dora got a good grip on Terri’s arm. “I need to talk to you for a minute.”
“Sure. How about that dance number? Those lessons I’ve been taking are paying off.”
“You were great.” With a nod to Jed, Dora steered Terri briskly through the stagehands and technicians. “We’ll just need a corner of the dressing room.”
Several other members of the chorus were already inside, repairing hair and makeup. Though some were stripped down to their underwear for costume changes, no one gave Jed more than a brief glance.
“Can I borrow this?” Dora asked, and commandeered a stool before anyone would refuse. “Sit down, Terri, get off your feet.”
“You don’t know how good that feels.” She shifted toward the mirrors, choosing a makeup sponge to dab at the greasepaint moistened by sweat.
“About DiCarlo,” Dora began.
“Who?” Terri stopped running lines in her head. “Oh, the guy from Christmas Eve.” She smiled at Jed. “Dora’s been real mysterious about him.”
“What did he buy?” Jed asked.
“Oh, a Staffordshire figure. Never even winked at the price. He looked like he could afford it without any trouble though. And it was for his aunt. His favorite aunt. He said how she’d practically raised him, and she was getting really old. You know, a lot of people don’t think that old people like getting nice things, but you could tell he really loved her.”
Jed let her run down. “Did he show any interest in anything else?”
“Well, he looked all around, took his time. I thought he might bite on the Foo dog because he was looking for an animal.”
“An animal?” Jed’s eyes sharpened, but his voice remained cool and flat.
“You know, a statue of one. His aunt collects statues. Dogs,” she added, relining her eyes with quick, deft movements. “See, she had this dog that died, and—”
“Was he specific?” Jed interrupted.
“Uh . . .” Terri pursed her lips and tried to think back. “Seems to me he really wanted a dog like the one his aunt had had who died—said he hadn’t been able to find exactly what he’d been looking for.” She freshened her lipstick, checked the results. “I remember he talked about the dog his aunt had—the dead one. I thought how we’d had that china piece that would have been perfect. It sounded like the dead dog had modeled for it. While he was alive, you know.” She picked up a brush to fuss with her hair. “You know, Dora, the one you picked up at that auction. We’d already sold it, though.”
Dora felt her blood drain. “To Mrs. Lyle.”
“I don’t know. You handled that sale, I think.”
“Yes.” Light-headed, Dora twisted her fingers together. “Yes, I did.”
“Hey!” Alarmed, Terri turned on the stool. “Are you okay?”
“I’m f
ine.” She forced a smile. She needed to get out. Needed air. “Thanks, Terri.”
“No problem. Are you staying for the rest of the show?”
“Not tonight.” Sickened, Dora fumbled for the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”