Forbidden Stranger
Marilyn Pappano
Everyone has a secret Exotic dancer Amanda was planning to retire her stilettos for a new life. Then Rick Calloway sauntered into the club she worked in and took her breath away. The darkly handsome new bartender had a connection to her past and secrets of his own.Working undercover to investigate the disappearances of several dancers, sexy cop Rick should have remained focused on the case, not Amanda. Or so he told himself. Their mutual attraction was dangerously inconvenient.But maybe it was what they both needed to live through another night…
She loosened the chain around her waist, letting its length trickle between her fingers into a small mound at the base of the pole.
The hook that secured her dress was next to go. With a shimmy, the gold lamé puddled at her feet, leaving her in a strapless black bra and thong. The act brought the usual reaction, still muted in her music-dazed brain…then her muscles went taut. A shiver rippled along her skin, making her feel exposed, and heat followed in its wake.
Opening her eyes, she searched for the gaze that could create such awareness, knowing that it was Rick’s. He stood off to the side, leaning against the jamb, arms crossed over his chest. He looked formidable enough to be a bouncer and drop-dead sexy enough to be any woman’s fantasy.
And he was watching her with enough intensity to make her feel like his fantasy.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marilyn Pappano brings impeccable credentials to her career – a lifelong habit of gazing out windows, not paying attention in class, daydreaming and spinning tales for her own entertainment. The sale of her first book brought great relief to her family, proving that she wasn’t crazy but was, instead, creative. Since then, she’s sold more than forty books to various publishers and has even sold her work to a film production company.
She writes in an office nestled among the oaks that surround her home. In winter she stays inside with her husband and their four dogs, and in summer she spends her free time mowing the yard, which never stops growing, and daydreams about grass that never gets taller than two inches. You can write to her at PO Box 643, Sapulpa, OK 74067-0643, USA.
Dear Reader,
In the past few years, exotic dancing has become a whole lot more respectable. Women dance to stay in shape and to keep their marriages spicy; stripper poles are turning up in the homes of everyday people; classes are offered at gyms and as part of vacation packages – and wasn’t that Oprah hosting a quick intro to stripping on her show?
So when I was working on the idea for this book, I wasn’t surprised to find out that Amanda was a stripper. It wasn’t something I chose for her; it was just part of who she was. I’d already set up Rick, an undercover agent for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, as a bartender in a strip club. Since he would be working a lot in the book, wouldn’t it be easier for his heroine to be someone he works with? And who better for a law-enforcing, badge-carrying investigator to fall in love with?
Love should never go too smoothly, now should it?
Marilyn Pappano
Forbidden Stranger
Marilyn Pappano
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Chapter 1
At 1:55 a.m., Amanda Nelson finished her last dance. After stopping in the dressing room to pull jeans and a T-shirt over her hot pink bra and Brazilian thong and to replace six-inch heels with flip-flops, she was out the back door by 2:01, keys in hand, way past ready to go home.
There were still customers in the club, finishing one last drink, some of them trying to buy companionship for the rest of the night from the girls willing to be bought. Those who weren’t willing were still in the dressing room, unwinding, taking off stage makeup, making plans to go out and party. Amanda was the only one in the shadowy parking lot behind the club. That fact creeped her out and made her walk a little faster, clench the keys a little tighter. She had strong lungs and stronger legs, as well as a container of pepper spray in her purse, but she didn’t want to be forced into a test of her ability to defend herself.
She was only a few yards from her car when a shadow separated from the darkness and moved toward her. Her heart jumped and her throat tightened in the instant before she recognized him.
Rick Calloway, part-time bartender, full-time hunk. He’d been at Almost Heaven only a few weeks, and that was all the girls knew about him. Well, that, plus the fact that he was the epitome of tall, dark and handsome.
But Amanda wasn’t just one of the girls. She knew Rick was six years older than her, that he came from the small Georgia town of Copper Lake, that the crook in his nose was the result of a high-school brawl, that he had two brothers, Robbie and Russ. She also knew that he hadn’t recognized her or her name, and for that she was grateful. Growing up in Copper Lake was an experience she preferred to leave in the past.
“Hey, Amanda. Sorry if I startled you.”
“You didn’t,” she lied. She used the remote to unlock her car, the headlights automatically flashing, illuminating him for a few seconds. He wore jeans, faded and snug, and an emerald-green polo shirt, also snug. His dark hair curled over his collar, and his olive-toned skin was stubbled with beard along his jaw. His eyes were surprisingly blue, like Robbie’s, and his voice sounded enough like Robbie’s had fifteen years ago that she would need more than a few words to tell them apart.
In his two weeks at the club, he hadn’t spoken to her more than a few times, and then only to steer her toward a customer who was dropping big bucks. She’d spoken to him only to thank him with a share of her tip. She never got cozy with the guys at work, neither the managers nor the employees nor the customers. She particularly didn’t want to get cozy with Robbie Calloway’s brother.
After tossing her gym bag into the backseat, she turned to face him. “Is there something I can do for you?”
“Yeah.” He shifted awkwardly. In all the times she’d seen him, awkward hadn’t been his style. “I have a friend who, uh, wants to learn to dance. I was wondering if—” he shrugged “—if you’d teach her.”
Amanda had always been a dancer. Her earliest memories were of twirling around the living room, alone or in her father’s arms, while her mother watched with an indulgent smile. Then the accident had happened and her father never twirled her nor her mother indulged her again.
She’d never had a lesson. She didn’t bother with routines, didn’t care about choreography. Moving to music came naturally to her. What little training she’d gotten had been on the job: watching the other dancers at that first club, getting a feel for what the customers liked and making it her own.
“There are classes she can take,” she said at last.
“She’s a little shy.”
“She can buy a videotape.”
“She does better with hands-on instruction.”
“Does she want to do this as a job or just for you?”
With the only light coming from the nearest streetlamp, it was impossible to say for sure, but his cheeks seemed darker. His voice was definitely a shade hoarser. “Uh, both, I think.”
Stripping could certainly bring a shy woman out of her shell. Not that Amanda knew from experience. She’d never had a shy bone in her body, her father used to say. She’d always been brash and bold, going after what she wanted. She still pursued her goals, but the brashness and boldness had worn off after twelve years on the club circuit.
“I’d pay for your time, of course,” Rick said.
She smiled thinly. Money—the magic word. Every exotic dancer she knew was in it for the money. It was a job that always outdid minimum wage and, if a girl was lucky and stayed in good shape, sometimes paid extraordinarily well. The trick was to put some of the good money away to help out through the not-so-good times.
That was a lesson Amanda had learned early on. She’d paid for her car with her savings, bought a house and put herself through college. When her thirty-first birthday rolled around in six weeks, she would officially retire from the business. No more bikini waxes, diets, working nights and sleeping days. No worrying about her body mass index or jogging three miles daily in Atlanta’s muggy heat. No wearing clothes that wouldn’t adequately cover a toddler—
Rick cleared his throat and she refocused on the subject. Did she want to teach Rick Calloway’s girlfriend how to turn him on by taking off her clothes? Not particularly. Was she willing to take his money in exchange for a few hours of her free time? Why not? It wasn’t as if she would be spending time with him. He would remain just as clueless about her as he was now.
“Okay. Tell her to call me.” Climbing into her car, she started the engine, then backed out. When she drove away, he was still standing there in the parking lot, watching her car as it disappeared into the night.
It was a ten-minute drive to her neighborhood, where her house stood in counterpoint to all the white houses on the block. Its wood siding was the color of a pumpkin pie fresh from the oven, its trim the same hue as whipped cream. It was small, little more than thirteen hundred square feet, but came with a decent-sized yard and a big front porch. And it was hers. Until she’d bought it, she’d never really had a place that was hers.
She parked in the driveway, then climbed the steps to the porch. It was deep enough to provide a sheltered view of the frequent summer storms and held a swing, a pine rocker, three wicker chairs and matching tables. With the floral cushions and the potted flowers scattered around, it was the fussiest space in her house.
Like her, the house was a work in progress; unlike her, it would soon be finished. She’d done the labor herself—hauling out cheap carpet and pad, stripping the heart of pine floors, sanding and refinishing them. She’d hung Sheetrock, replaced molding, completely retiled the fireplace surround, the kitchen and the bathroom. The only room left to finish was her bedroom, which would be done about the time she retired from dancing and started her new life.
Her puppy greeted her with a sleepy one-eyed look before rising to her feet, stretching, then padding over for a scratch. Amanda obliged her for a moment, then opened the door so Dancer could trot out into the yard. In a minute or so, she was back, tail wagging lazily as she headed for her spot on the bed.
Stifling a yawn, Amanda wandered into her bedroom, still a ghastly “before” that would soon become a fresh “after.” Not that there was a rush. She hadn’t brought anyone home to see it in more months than she wanted to recall.
And that admission was certainly no reason for Rick Calloway’s image to pop into her mind. She’d had enough of the Calloways to last a lifetime. Her father had worked for Calloway Industries, as his father and grandfather had. They’d lived in houses and apartments owned by the Calloways, had shopped in Calloway stores in a town whose mayor was always a Calloway. Her own first job had been for the family, and her first broken heart had come at the hands of Robbie Calloway. When she’d left Copper Lake almost fifteen years ago, she’d thought she’d seen the last of them.
Then Rick Calloway had walked into the club. There was no mistaking that he was one of those Calloways. She may not have seen one in ages, but the family resemblance was strong. She’d held her breath for a time, hoping he wouldn’t recognize her before realizing her own conceit. He’d never noticed her when they lived in the same small town. He’d been older, she’d been poorer; he’d been special, she’d been nobody. How could he recognize someone he hadn’t known existed?
Giving in to a yawn, she kicked off her shoes and went into the bathroom, the tile cold beneath her feet. While the tub filled with hot water, she stripped off her clothes, removed her makeup and secured her hair to the top of her head before sliding into the tub. There was a time when she’d danced a six- or eight-hour shift, then gone out to party for another three hours. Not anymore. Stripping was a demanding job that took its toll on a body. A dancer had only so many good years and she was at the end of hers.
Her new career wouldn’t be nearly as strenuous. Walking across campus, carrying books, handing out stacks of papers… Eyes closed, she smiled, her satisfaction so intense that the water around her practically vibrated with it. Amanda Nelson, poor girl who would never amount to anything, high school dropout, stripper, was going back to college.
This time as a teacher.
For the first time in her life, she was going to be one hundred percent respectable.
If he were alive today, wouldn’t her father be proud?
Bleary-eyed after less than five hours’ sleep, Rick Calloway slid into the booth across from his sometimes-partner and removed his sunglasses. He winced at the bright light and put them on again, then took a swig of coffee. What it lacked in heat, it more than made up for in bitterness, but he didn’t bother doctoring it. He wouldn’t bother finishing it, either.
“You look like you had a tough night.” Julia Dautrieve’s voice was just like her—no-nonsense. Everything about her was function over style, from her black dress with matching jacket to her low-heeled shoes. She was smart as hell, handled a gun better than most of the men they worked with and was more capable than just about anyone he knew. He just couldn’t see her handling this new job.
“My night would have been fine if someone hadn’t dragged me out of bed at an ungodly hour for coffee,” he grumbled. The club closed at two, but by the time he got everyone out so he could clean and lock up, it was usually after three. This morning it had been four before he’d made it home, five before he’d showered and fallen asleep.
Thinking about Amanda Nelson.
He’d noticed her his first night on the job. Hell, he was alive, wasn’t he? Five foot six, slender as a reed but with some very nice curves, too. Long auburn hair that curled wildly, endless legs, pale golden skin. And she’d been showing a lot of skin that first night, wearing a tiny yellow bra that covered only the necessities and a breakaway skirt that was about the size of a paper towel.
It had been clear that night that she was a lot of guys’ fantasy come to life, but not his. She was part of the job and Harry had told him with a wink and a grin, “Look, but don’t touch.” That was official policy at all the clubs, though it was broken at all of them. He hadn’t yet met the bartender, bouncer or manager who hadn’t had a thing with one or more of the girls at their clubs.
Look, but don’t touch was his official policy. His bosses at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation would frown on him hooking up with a stripper while in the course of his investigation.
“Did you talk to her?”
Julia’s businesslike tone cut into his thoughts and made him scowl. “Yeah. She said okay.”
“Damn.” Julia’s voice held more emotion than usual—disappointment, irritation. “I was hoping…”
That Amanda would turn him down. That all the girls would tell him no, earning Julia a reprieve. Amanda had agreed for a price, though they hadn’t settled on an amount yet. Most of the dancers at Almost Heaven would have agreed for free—at least, for no cash payment. Most of them had already come on to him.
Except Amanda.
“You can tell Baker you won’t do it.”
Now it was her turn to scowl. “I’ve never backed away from a challenge. I can’t afford to.”
Being a woman in a still predominantly male field probably did have its challenges. Rick wondered if that was the reason for the ugly shoes, the plain clothes, the severe hair. Was this her way of making her gender less of an issue, or was she stuffy and uptight by nature? He’d worked with her for three years, but didn’t know. Didn’t know much at all about her personal life. He’d asked. She’d just never answered.
“He can’t make you go undercover as a stripper.”
Julia shrugged. “It’s just part of the job. No big deal.” Then she slid her cell phone across the table. “Call her. Set up an appointment.”
Rick ignored her phone and pulled his out instead. Before leaving the club that morning, he’d put Amanda’s number in his phone book. She would think he’d gotten it from Harry, which suited him just fine. None of the girls needed to know that GBI had done background investigations on them all.
As the phone rang, he idly wondered if it was too early to call. She’d left the club two hours before him, but that didn’t mean she’d gone home and to bed. She could have stopped for something to eat, gone out with friends or had a date. Not his business if she had.
But she answered on the third ring and her voice was too cheerful and alert for her to have been sleeping. The simple sound of her hello conjured an image of her, not in the skimpy clothes he usually saw her in, but the way she’d looked that morning, in faded jeans and a T-shirt advertising Atlanta’s zoo. She’d looked so different. Still pretty, still sexy, just wholesome. Unjaded.
She’d repeated the hello before he prodded himself to answer. “Hey, this is Calloway. Did I wake you?”
“No, not at all.”
“I told Julia, my, uh, friend, that you’d agreed to teach her, and she wanted to know when you could start.”
Her voice hushed, Amanda spoke to someone in the background, and Rick wondered again if she’d had a date and if he’d slept over. What kind of man dated a stripper? Not that there was anything wrong with strippers in general. Most of them he’d met were nice women just trying to make their way. But what kind of man didn’t mind that his girlfriend took off her clothes for the gratification of strangers? Maybe Rick was old-fashioned, but he liked to believe that, when he was involved with a woman, he was the only one seeing her naked, or practically so.
“Sorry,” Amanda said into the phone. “My puppy was trying to eat my laundry. Um, is she available today?”
Today? Rick mouthed, and Julia mouthed back, Now? “How about now?” he asked.
“Sure, anytime. I’ll be here until six-thirty. My address is…”
Rick didn’t pay much attention. He’d already gotten that from her file, too. He was thinking about the fact that it was a puppy, not a boyfriend, who’d distracted her, and the fact that the knowledge was somehow satisfying when it shouldn’t mean a damn thing.
“Okay,” he said when she stopped talking. “I’ll tell her. Thanks.”
Julia waited until he’d flipped shut the phone. “Well?”
“Anytime before six-thirty. She’s working tonight.” Working. Dancing. Taking off her clothes. She was one of the few dancers at Almost Heaven who didn’t strip down to nothing but a thong or g-string. She always kept those teeny-tiny bras on, and the men didn’t mind, always tipping her generously.
But there wasn’t a man among them who didn’t wish she would dispose of the bra just once.
“Are you going with me?” Julia asked.
“Why?”
“Just to perform the introductions.” She was uncharacteristically nervous—her gaze not quite meeting his, her fingers pressing against the coffee cup hard enough to turn the tips white.
“Okay. Sure.” He wouldn’t mind seeing where Amanda lived. Seeing how she looked on a normal day when she was just being herself and not an exotic dancer whose job was to titillate.
Then he would go home and back to bed for a few hours’ more sleep.
Julia left enough money to cover the coffee, then slid out of the booth. Her shoulders were set, the line of her spine rigid. He couldn’t imagine her loosening up enough to mimic even one of Amanda’s fluidly sensual, graceful moves, but she might surprise him. As she’d said, she didn’t back away from a challenge.
He gave her the address in case they got separated, then climbed into his car. The engine growled to life, vibrating through the seat. The Calloway boys all had a thing for old engines with power. His 1969 Camaro was a couple years older than him, with a 454-cubic-inch small block V8 that put out 641 horsepower. It was fast.
With Julia following in her sedan—good price, good mileage, so-so performance, totally forgettable—he navigated through mile after mile of gas stations, fast-food restaurants and used-car lots before turning into Amanda’s neighborhood. The houses were older, probably built in the forties or fifties, most pretty well maintained. Hers stood out, sporting recent coats of orange and off-white paint that looked better than they should have. The grass was neatly mowed and the last of the summer flowers bloomed along the sidewalk and in beds that fronted the porch.
“It’s a homey place for a stripper,” Julia murmured when she got out of her car, parked at the curb behind his.
“You were expecting something a little more club-like? Or just a little more sinnerlike?” When she scowled at him, he grinned back. “Don’t be disappointed yet. She might have the inside all done up in red and black satin with mirrors, poles and chains.”
As they crossed the sidewalk, he took her arm. She stiffened but didn’t pull away. “What’s that for?”
“Didn’t I tell you?” They climbed the steps and he rang the doorbell, then grinned at her again. “Amanda thinks you’re wanting to learn to strip for me.”
Color flooded Julia’s face, but before she could say anything, the door opened. Amanda stood just inside the screen door, long curls pulled up in a ponytail, wearing a faded University of Georgia T-shirt, a pair of denim shorts, no shoes and no makeup. She looked younger than the thirty he knew her to be, soft and pretty and not the least exotic.
Beside her stood a dog the size of a small pony, long, gangly, with feet that would do an elephant proud. Its coat was pure black, sleek except for the cowlick between its ears, and its dark eyes were fixed on Rick. “Some ‘puppy,’” he murmured.
“The vet estimates her age at about ten months. That makes you a puppy, doesn’t it, Dancer?” Amanda unlatched the screen door, then stepped back. “Come on in. You must be Rick’s friend. I’m Amanda Nelson.”
“Julia Dautrieve.” Giving the dog a wary look, Julia moved into the foyer, belatedly shaking hands with Amanda. She took a few steps away, glanced around, then smiled nervously. “I, uh, appreciate your doing this.”
“No problem.” Amanda shifted her gaze to Rick. He knew from her background investigation that she had hazel eyes. That seemed such a tame description for the blue, green and brown mix that gazed at him. “Are you going to stay?”
“No,” he and Julia said at the same time. It was one thing to watch Amanda dance at the club, another to do so in the intimacy of her home, and still another to do so with his supposed girlfriend there. He would be safer all around if he left. Now.
“Julia’s going to surprise me later,” he said, making his partner blush again. She really would surprise him if she found the courage—and the sensuality—to go through with the job. “I just came along to perform the introductions. Now I’m outta here.”
Amanda nodded, then went into the living room to the right, giving him privacy to say goodbye to Julia. He grasped her fingers, cold and clammy, and pulled her around so his back was to Amanda. “You okay?” he murmured.
Looking anything but, she nodded.
Not sure whether Amanda was watching, he brushed a kiss across Julia’s mouth. “Call me,” he said, then winked and grinned. “Have fun.”
Before she could react—a forced smile, a sarcastic reply, an internal struggle not to draw her weapon on him—he ducked out the door, trotted along the sidewalk to his car and slid behind the wheel. As he pulled away from the curb, he felt a rush of relief, as if he’d just escaped some danger.
And its name was Amanda.
Until the wee hours of that morning, Amanda hadn’t spent even one second considering what kind of woman would attract Rick Calloway. As long as he paid no attention to her, that was all that mattered. In the past few hours, though, she’d wasted far too much time considering it, and she hadn’t guessed even faintly close.
She’d expected someone pretty, sexy, maybe even edgy. Someone sure of herself personally, professionally, sexually. Someone other guys would covet, who made other women feel insecure.
Not someone like Julia Dautrieve. Oh, she was attractive in a plain sort of way. She needed a more flattering hairstyle and the unrelenting black she wore made her porcelain complexion look pasty and washed out. The below-the-knee dress length was dowdy, and those shoes… Amanda’s only thought on the shoes was burn them.
But she’d caught Rick’s eye.
She was standing in the living room doorway, her gaze returning repeatedly to the stripper pole in the dining room, looking as if she’d like nothing more than to run in those sturdy, plain shoes back to her sturdy, plain car and her sturdy, plain world. But she hadn’t fled yet, so Amanda chose to act as if she wouldn’t.
“Would you like a glass of tea before we start?”
“I’d rather have scotch,” Julia muttered.
“Sorry. I don’t drink.”
Julia smiled unsteadily. “Tea is fine.”
“We can sit on the porch if you’d like. I think it’s cool enough to be comfortable.”
With a nod, Julia went outside. Nosing the screen door open, Dancer followed her while Amanda went to the kitchen for the tea. She carried the two glasses outside a moment later, finding Julia in one of the wicker chairs, Dancer in another. She handed one glass of tea to the woman, then took the third chair.
“Rick says you’re interested in making a career change. What do you do now?”
“I’m a bookkeeper.” Julia’s nose wrinkled. “Big switch, huh?”
“Not really.” Amanda was a stripper about to become a college-level English instructor. That was a big change. “Have you ever danced?”
“I took ballet when I was a kid.”
“Really.” Amanda never would have guessed it, except that she did have perfect posture. But no grace, no elegance, no comfort with her body.
Her noncommittal response didn’t fool Julia. “I know. You’d never know it to look at me, would you?” She ran one fingernail along the rounded neckline of her dress as if it choked. “I’m a little uptight.”
Amanda smiled gently. “I think when it comes to keeping books, being uptight is probably a good thing.”
“Probably, but it doesn’t do much for a woman.”
Didn’t do much for Rick? Was that what she meant?
Gazing at the periwinkles that bordered the porch, Amanda asked, “What made you decide to try this?” If she was forcing herself to act so totally out of character for anyone besides herself, it wasn’t going to work. Like losing weight or getting in shape, stripping was something a woman had to want for herself.
“Oh, I don’t know. I think every woman must wonder what it would be like.” Julia shrugged uncomfortably. “Wearing sexy clothes, doing sexy dances, having men look at you, want you, pay to be with you. Men have probably always looked at you like that, but not me. I just want to know how it feels.”
How it felt was unremarkable. Just as balancing spreadsheets was part of Julia’s day, it was part of the job.
Oh, not in the beginning. There had been a real sense of power in those early days. Men who had never laid eyes on her before were willing to pay money just to have her sit at their tables and talk to them—willing to pay a lot of money for private dances. They hadn’t known or cared that she’d grown up on the wrong side of town, that she’d gone through a wild-child phase in high school, that the boys back home had called her Randy Mandy. All they’d cared about was those few minutes when her attention was all theirs.
“But you have a boyfriend that most of the girls at the club would give a month’s worth of tips to have for just one night,” Amanda pointed out.
For a moment, Julia looked puzzled, then she gave a shake of her head as if clearing it. “You mean Rick. Yeah, he’s a nice guy.”
Funny. “Nice” didn’t come to mind first, second or even third when Amanda thought of Rick—or any other Calloway, for that matter. Handsome, sexy, privileged, snobbish, bastard—at least, when it came to Robbie.
“Did he ask you to do this?”
Pink tinged Julia’s cheeks. No doubt, she hated to blush, but there were men at the club who would pay extra just to see it. Innocence fascinated them, especially when they saw so little of it onstage. “No,” she denied unconvincingly. “I want to give it a shot. See if it will help me loosen up.” She took a deep breath, then her pretty brown gaze met Amanda’s. “I’ve been rigid and stuffy all my life. Just once I’d like to be something else.”
Amanda understood wanting to be something else. She’d felt the yearning, the need, the dissatisfaction. “All right. Let’s go inside and start turning you into something else.”
Julia was slow to rise from the chair. As she did, Dancer jumped to the floor, too, trotted over and walked through the open screen door, stopped at the water dish, then curled onto the one-armed chaise that served as Amanda’s sofa.
“I like your house,” Julia said as she followed Amanda down the hall and into the bedroom.
“Thank you. I did it—am doing it—myself.” She pointed to the chair in front of her dressing table, then slapped down a packet of makeup remover towelettes. “Take off your makeup.”
The dressing table was really an old rolltop desk, with a lighted makeup mirror in the center and everything a woman needed to make herself look good tucked into the drawers and cubbies. Amanda plugged in the curling iron, used in the occasional futile attempt to tame her own curls, then began removing the pins that held Julia’s hair in its unforgiving chignon.
“You realize your age will work against you,” she commented as she combed out the fine silken strands. “Twenty-nine, thirty—that’s pretty much the cutoff for dancers. It’s a hard job.”
“I know. I’m not giving up my day job. I’d just like to do it for a while.”
“And Rick’s okay with that.”
“Sure. Why wouldn’t he be? Your boyfriends don’t mind, do they?”
Amanda combed out a section of silky black hair, then rolled it onto the curling iron. “They usually didn’t mind in the beginning. Sooner or later, though, they got jealous.” Or, worse, they got turned on—not by her, her dancing, her body, but by the fact that other men were turned on by her. The ick factor in that was too extreme to overcome.
But she’d thought Rick… Hell, she didn’t know Rick. And he was Robbie’s brother, after all. His ick factor could well be much higher than she wanted to know.
Face stripped clean of makeup, Julia watched silently as Amanda curled her hair. Finally, almost timidly, she said, “I thought you’d teach me something today.”
“You want things to be different. We’re starting with making you look different. Your hair is too stuffy and your makeup’s too subtle.” Amanda smiled a bit wistfully. “There’s nothing subtle about this business.”
Leaving the curled hair to cool, she turned her attention to makeup. Her skin tone was a few shades darker than Julia’s, but with some mixing of foundations, she matched it pretty closely. Judging by the faint smears on the towelette, Julia’s normal routine included foundation, blush and a single shade of eye shadow, all applied with a very light touch. Her eyes popped when she got a look at the products Amanda lined up, everything from corrector to eyeliner to glimmery powder.
“A lot of new dancers take a drink or two before they go onstage,” she remarked as she worked. “It becomes a habit way too easily, so don’t even start. And take the time to find some good body makeup. If you do much floor or pole work, you’ll need it to cover the bruises. Buy your shoes now and get used to wearing them. You’re about my height, so four-inch heels are the minimum. Try the six-inch, and when you can handle them, consider the eight-inch. They make your legs and your butt look better and that will get you better tips.” “Eight-inch heels?” Julia squeaked. “I wear flats.”
“Not to dance. You’ll have to invest in some clothes, too—thongs, bras, skirts, booty shorts. There’s a little shop here in town—” Amanda broke off when a giggle escaped Julia.
“Booty shorts?” she echoed.
“Micro shorts, hipsters. Just like you CPA types, we have our own lingo. For your first time out, I’d recommend a Brazilian thong. It gives more coverage in back than a regular thong. And you know you have to have a bikini wax.”
“That’s one thing that’s not new,” Julia said with a grimace.
Maybe she wasn’t as ill-suited to this adventure as she seemed. Once Amanda retired, she would give up bikinis forever, because she was damn sure giving up bikini waxes. She was getting rid of all her dance clothes and her arch-killing shoes—well, there was one pair of sweet crystal-encrusted four-and-a-half-inch stilettos that made her legs to die for. And maybe she’d keep the Tinkerbell skirt with its fluttery hem and the iridescent bra that matched. After all, she was giving up stripping, not looking sexy from time to time.
She dusted a mocha-hued eyeshadow over Julia’s lids before picking up the gel eyeliner and a small brush. “If you want to dance professionally for any length of time, you’ll have to get in better shape. Jogging is great for stamina, and weight-training to define the muscles. Yoga, too. It gives you a longer, leaner look. And watch your diet. Low carbs, low fat, low calorie. The lower your body fat, the bigger your tips.”
“Jeez, this sounds like training for some sort of athletic competition.”
“It is,” Amanda agreed. More than most people realized. But dancers didn’t get the kind of respect athletes did—at least, not exotic dancers. To too many people, strippers were one step, if even that, above prostitutes. She’d never had sex for money, but her aunt Dana had still called her a whore when she’d thrown Amanda out of her house twelve years ago. Her mother had still talked about the shame she’d felt when Amanda had decided to make her temporary dance job permanent.
Her hand trembled, smearing the black-brown mascara. She used a swab to clean away the streak, then concentrated on what she was doing. Those old hurts would never be gone. She could haul them out to reexamine tomorrow or next month. At the moment, though, she had a job to do.
Taking money from Rick Calloway to make his girlfriend sexier for him.
Just like her father and her mother before her, she was working for a Calloway. But this was different. Her parents had worked for the Calloways because they’d owned damn near everything in Copper Lake. They’d had no choice. In this venture, all the choices were Amanda’s. Her livelihood wasn’t at stake. All she had to say was no, and their association would end.
When she finished with the makeup, she combed out Julia’s curls before letting her check the results in the mirror. Julia’s brown eyes widened as she turned her head from side to side. “Oh, my gosh. I look…”
Her black hair shimmered in waves that softened her face, and the makeup played up her eyes and the great cheekbones beneath them. She looked prettier, more approachable, sexier.
“Wow. This is worth whatever Rick’s paying you. I could stop right now—” Abruptly, she bit her lip, smudging the lip liner/lipstick/lip gloss Amanda had just applied. After a moment, she smiled and went on with less enthusiasm. “I’m just kidding. Of course I want to learn to dance. I really do.”
Who was she trying to convince? Amanda?
Or herself?
Chapter 2
Rick stood behind the bar, damp cloth in hand, toothpick between his teeth. He glanced at his watch. It was eight-thirty. Amanda had finished her first set fifteen minutes ago and was now seated at a stage-side table with some of her regulars. Four men, early fifties to sixties, varying shades of gray except for one bald guy, always dressed in suits and ties. They looked just like the businessmen that made up about half the clientele, but he knew from the records checks that their business was education. Baldy was the president of a small liberal arts college nearby, and the other three were deans. Tuesday nights were their regular budget committee meetings, or so they told their wives.
Rick hadn’t talked to Amanda since he’d left her house that morning, but he’d spoken to Julia on the phone. She’d been pretty closed-mouthed about her first lesson, saying nothing besides it had gone well. Now she was in the process of moving into his apartment, halfway between Amanda’s house and the club. She didn’t like the idea, even though she would have her own room, but she damn sure didn’t want to give out her real address when she came to work here. If she came to work here.
Amanda’s laughter separated from the background noise, drawing his attention her way. She was standing now, one hand on the back of baldy’s chair. Tonight the thong and bra were black-and-gold tiger stripes. Points of see-through black fabric fluttered over her middle and a length of shiny gold coiled around her upper left arm. The whole outfit was sexy, but just that bracelet wrapped around her bicep was enough to turn a man on.
She patted baldy on the shoulder, then headed toward the bar. Rick watched her, idly noting that the temperature seemed to be rising. Great for the girls in their skimpy costumes. In jeans and a T-shirt, he was liable to break out in a sweat.
Amanda stopped at the end of the bar. “Three vodka Collins, one cosmopolitan and a bottled water.”
He got the water first, sliding it across the bar to her. It was tempting to stand there and watch her drink it—twist off the plastic cap, lift the bottle to her mouth, take a drink so long and so cold that it raised goose bumps on her skin. Instead, he turned his attention to the drinks. His only qualification for this job when he’d started was that he’d drunk his share of liquor over the years. A crash course in bartending, along with a tattered copy of The Moron’s Guide to Mixology tucked under the bar, had gotten him through.
“Those men are old enough to be your grandfather,” he remarked as he poured vodka into all four glasses.
“Father, actually. I’m not that young.”
She looked way too young to be working in a place like this.
“Aren’t you ever tempted to tell them to go home to their wives?”
She held the water bottle to her throat, close enough to feel the chill but not to touch her makeup. She had the makeup application down to an art—enough to look good under the stage lights, but not so much that it looked overdone offstage.
“Their wives don’t miss them. The men have their budget committee meetings and the women have their garden club.”
“Do they ever try to buy more than drinks?” None of his business, Rick silently acknowledged. Some dancers worked the prostitution angle; plenty didn’t. When the case was over, he would put everything he’d found out in his report and if anyone on the job chose to pursue it, fine.
“Not these guys. Coming here is a little wild and risqué for them. Their lives are pretty tame.”
Rick finished off the Collinses with club soda, then added triple sec, cranberry and lime juice to the cosmo. Not these guys, she’d said, which implied that others did. He wanted to ask which ones and whether they’d been successful. “How did it go with Julia?”
“Fine. We went shopping.”
“I’m paying you to shop?”
The remark made her uneasy. Her gaze shifted away and it took a moment for her smile to form. “Great job, isn’t it?” Then she shrugged, her tiger stripes rippling. “You can’t dance without the right clothes and shoes.”
He doubted most men would agree with her. The flashy colors and see-through fabrics were nice, but they weren’t necessary. Every man he knew would be just as turned on by a woman wearing a white cotton bra and panties. In fact, Amanda, with her creamy golden skin, would look incredible in her underwear. There was something more intimate about imagining her in the lingerie she wore for herself, not for tips.
Wishing Harry would turn the AC to frigid, Rick set the last drink on her tray. “We never settled on an amount. How about one night’s house fee per lesson?”
Her eyes widened slightly. One night on the stage cost each dancer seventy-five dollars. Anything over that, they got to pocket. Some girls actually went in the hole on slow nights, but weekends always made up for it.
“All right,” she agreed. She picked up the tray and started away, then turned back. “You should have asked first. I would have settled for twenty-five, thirty bucks.” She gracefully strolled away, tray balanced on one delicate hand.
When she was out of earshot, he murmured, “You would have sold yourself cheap, darlin’.”
She was a beautiful woman. Smart. Capable. She could do anything she wanted, yet for twelve years she’d settled for this. Why?
He’d learned early in his career that asking why people did the things they did was an exercise in futility. Why did a seventeen-year-old honor student decide the profit margin versus risk in selling drugs made it a good choice? Why did a gangbanger open fire on a crowd of strangers—kids, no less—as he drove down the street?
For the most part, Rick had lost interest in the why. His focus these days was on delivering the consequences to people who broke the law.
But he couldn’t help but wonder about Amanda’s why. Why was she a stripper? Why hadn’t she pursued a more respectable career? Why wasn’t she married and raising kids? Why was she spending her nights in a place like this with people like him?
The club had about two customers too many to rank as a slow night. Rick made drinks whose recipes he could now recite in his sleep, watched the customers and talked for a minute here or there with the dancers. It was casual conversation—drink orders, a little flirting. Youhave any plans when you get off? Want to join me fordessert? Unless he made an effort to see the girls outside the club—too risky—he had no real chance to get information from them. It was tough to subtly say, “A margarita on the rocks, a whiskey sour and, say, do you remember a girl named Lisa who used to work here?”
That was why Julia was coming onboard. Dancers talked to each other. Hopefully, they would talk to her about Lisa Howard, Tasha Wiley and DinaBeth Jones.
Three dancers, all having appeared on the main stage at Almost Heaven, all disappeared over a three-month period pretty much without a trace until parts from Tasha’s and DinaBeth’s cars had turned up in a chop shop on the northern side of Atlanta. The chop shop happened to belong to Roosevelt Hines, who also owned Almost Heaven and its four sister clubs.
Rosey, he called himself, and no one laughed. He stood six-six, weighed three hundred pounds and didn’t give a damn about anyone but himself. He’d started with petty theft when he was ten and worked his way up the food chain. The strip clubs were the most legitimate of his businesses. He said he liked his girls, claimed he kept the bad stuff away from them.
Would Lisa, Tasha and DinaBeth agree?
“Hey, Calloway, time for a break.”
He glanced up to find Chad, bouncer and relief bartender, standing at the other end of the bar, flirting with a little blonde named Dawn. Rick had walked in on them in the storeroom his first night on the job, in the men’s room the next night. He’d seen enough to make a point of always knocking first.
There were dancers on all three stages, the budget committee was having a good time and there was no sign of Amanda. On her own break? Where Rick would have normally headed straight out back, this time he detoured past the dressing room. The door was always open; there was no false modesty among the dancers.
The room looked like an explosion of colors, leathers and metals. Bright lights circled the makeup mirrors and cosmetics spilled across the counters. Lockers lined one wall, holding the mundane jeans, T-shirts and running shoes that turned exotic dancers back into everyday young women.
Only one of the chairs in front of the mirrors was occupied, by a gorgeous Jamaican woman who was adding a coat of something to already-thick lashes. “Hey, sweetie,” she greeted him. “You lookin’ for someone in particular, sugar? Or will Eternity do?”
She could ask that question of a thousand guys and get nothing but affirmation from every one of them. He grinned apologetically. “I wanted to ask Amanda something.”
Her dark gaze narrowed. “Amanda, huh. I was betting Monique would be more your type. If Amanda’s not out front, she’s in study hall.”
“Study hall?”
“That empty little room near the back door that no one ever uses.”
“Thanks.” He took a step out the door, then stopped. “Which one is Monique?”
“Brunette. Short hair. Triple D’s.”
Oh, yeah. There was a time when she would have been his type. A time all of them would have suited. “I have a girlfriend.” It was a lie, but it sounded good.
Better to him than to Eternity, if her look was anything to judge by. “You think all them guys out there don’t, chico?” she murmured as she turned back to her makeup.
Rick’s jaw tightened as he followed the narrow hall to the rear of the building. He knew better than to equate a relationship with fidelity. His father had had a girlfriend or three, along with a wife. The only good thing Rick could say about the bastard was that he’d been discreet in his affairs. His mother hadn’t had a clue until a heart attack had dropped the old man in his tracks and she’d found out that her sons had a half brother living down in Mississippi.
Sara had been a better woman than anyone had expected—than Gerald had deserved. She’d welcomed Mitch into the family and made a place for him in her own home. She loved him like one of her own. Too bad she’d loved Gerald, too.
Rick had been eleven when his father died and his mother’s heart had been broken. He hadn’t felt anything decent for Gerald since.
Reaching the closed door just ten feet from the rear exit, Rick knocked.
A moment later, the door swung open. “Getting formal, aren’t we, Eternity? You always just barge—Oh. Sorry. No one usually bothers me back here besides—” Hugging her arms across her middle, Amanda finished with a grimace.
He would have invited himself inside if the space hadn’t been so small or the idea hadn’t seemed so bad. Instead, he leaned against the doorjamb and gave the room a quick scan. The walls were painted the same shade as her living room and the one-armed sofa looked a match to the one he’d seen at her place. There was an oval mirror on one wall, a floor lamp and a small table that held a bottle of water, a clock, a book, a pair of reading glasses and t-rom a trick-or-treat-size candy bar.
“Study hall?” he asked, bringing his gaze back to her.
She glanced at the table, too. “When I was in school, I studied in here on breaks.”
“Getting your GED?”
A pained look slid across her face. “About eleven years ago. This summer I finished my bachelor’s degree.”
“Congratulations,” he said, then added, “Sorry. I didn’t mean…”
She shrugged. “A lot of us didn’t get to finish high school.”
But that was no reason to automatically assume she hadn’t.
She’d traded tiger stripes for a filmy gold Grecian goddess thing that left one shoulder bare. She’d kept the gold coil around her arm. Her hair was piled on top of her head, curls spilling down, with a gold patterned band circling her forehead. Fabric draped loosely over her breasts, then gathered at her waist, belted by a thin gold chain. The skirt was barely deserving of the name, short, insubstantial, revealing peeks of the black thong underneath. The leather laces of a pair of platform sandals crisscrossed her calves.
And just about finished him.
What the hell was wrong with him? He’d been watching the girls dance for weeks now, first at Rosey’s Marietta club, then here. He’d seen them fully dressed, damn near naked and everything in between. It had become so commonplace that he hardly noticed anymore.
So why had he suddenly started noticing Amanda?
Breaks were few and Amanda had always protected every moment of hers. For every hour she’d spent in a college classroom, she’d spent two in this oversize closet, reading, cramming. Everyone knew to leave her alone when she was there. Oh, Eternity dropped in sometimes, always curious about Amanda’s studies and her plans for the future.
But the break was slipping away, and there was Rick blocking the door, saying nothing, just looking. Menhave probably always looked at you, Julia had said. Men, sure. A Calloway? Just once, and she’d paid for that.
But that was a long time ago. She was all grown-up now. Her father was dead, her mother hardly spoke to her and soon she would be starting a new life. Nothing Rick could say or do could hurt her. Life, and her mother and his brother, had made sure of that.
Still, it took courage to turn her back, stroll across a few feet of plush carpet brought from home and seat herself on the chaise. She swung her legs onto the cushion, then picked up her book. “Did you come here for a reason?”
“Yeah. But damned if I can remember what it was.” The words were accompanied by a charming grin that could have fluttered every female heart in the place. But her heart wasn’t fluttering. It was just indigestion from the too-rich chocolate she’d eaten before his visit.
“Then close the door on your way out, will you?” She opened the book to the dog-ear marking her place and began to read again. At least, she went through the motions. She squinted at the words, getting each one into her brain in order but understanding none of them. She had no problem, though, understanding that he hadn’t left the room. That he still stood there, still looked at her. She ignored him as long as she could before lowering the book and asking, “Is there a reason you’re still here?”
“Are those your reading glasses?”
She glanced at the wire-framed glasses on the table. “Everything in here is mine.”
“So why aren’t you wearing them?”
Picking them up, she slid them into place. She wasn’t vain. As glasses went, they were flattering, and the fact that they brought hazy words into focus made wearing them a no-brainer. The fact that they made Rick hazy instead was another benefit. Plus, she couldn’t deny that somewhere down inside, she felt more serious, more substantive, when she wore them.
Did she want Rick to think there was more to her than a nice body?
“Cute,” he said, then slid his hand into his pocket. After pulling out a handful of bills, he counted out three twenties, a ten and a five and folded them neatly in fourths. “For today’s lesson.”
She took money from men on an almost-daily basis, but not from a Calloway since fifteen summers ago when she had clerked part-time at the Copper Lake Lumberyard, owned by Rick’s uncle Garry. He’d paid her in cash, folding the money in exactly the same way, delivering it with an oily smile and a look in his eyes that had made her feel small and insignificant.
At the end of that summer, Robbie had made her feel even worse.
But Rick’s look wasn’t any different than usual and he’d saved her the trouble of folding the bills herself. Accepting them, she slid them into the thin slot barely noticeable in the platform of her left shoe. Tip-jar shoes, they were called, giving a dancer a secure place to keep her tips when she was onstage…or in a back room.
“Thanks,” she said, then lowered her gaze to the book again, expecting him to leave.
He didn’t. “Do you think Julia will loosen up enough to actually get on a stage?”
Proust would have to wait for another day, Amanda acknowledged, closing the book and removing her glasses. “I don’t know. She says she wants to. A lot of people will do whatever it takes to get what they want.”
Like her. She’d worked hard to get what she wanted and she firmly believed the struggle would make the success that much sweeter.
“Do you think you could persuade Harry to give her a shot here?”
“You want to watch her dance in front of strangers?” There was that ick feeling she’d experienced earlier in the day.
“I want to keep an eye on her. She’s not used to places like this.”
“I can ask, depending on how the next lessons go.” Amanda had worked with Harry for years and she’d rarely asked favors of him. Because of that, and because she was popular with his customers, he would likely give Julia a shot without sending her to one of the smaller clubs first.
“Does your boyfriend ever come and watch you?”
She glanced at the clock, then stood, balancing on the eight-inch platforms as naturally as on bare feet. “No boyfriend.”
“What about the guys you date?”
“None of them, either. I’ve had priorities,” she said as she checked her appearance in the mirror, adjusting the headband. “Save money, buy my house, finish my degree. There will be time to worry about relationships when I retire.”
Rick’s brows raised. “You plan to wait another thirty or forty years before you look for a guy?”
She turned away from the mirror and replaced his reflection with the real thing. “When I retire from dancing. Five weeks and five days from today.”
He still looked surprised. “Then what will you do?”
She couldn’t contain the smile that spread from ear to ear. “When the spring semester begins in January, I’ll be the newest English lit teacher at the James C. Middleton College of Liberal Arts.”
He thumbed in the direction of the main room. “The old guys out there? The budget committee?”
She nodded. “Dean Jaeger, the one who wears the bow ties, was my advisor. When the job opened, he suggested I apply. I did, and they hired me.”
“And they don’t mind your dancing?”
Any traditional school would have found her background objectionable. Amanda had been prepared for that. She had even considered more than once changing her major—had acknowledged that to get a teaching job anywhere, she would have to gloss over her background at best, flat-out lie about it at worst. “They take the liberal part of their name seriously. Having a former stripper teach English lit seems perfectly reasonable to them.”
“Wow. I never had teachers like you in college. I might have paid more attention if I had.”
She hadn’t thought about his own college degree. Higher education had been a given for all Calloways, and the University of Georgia had been the place. They went on to successful lives. Amazing what advantages could do for a person. And yet Rick was tending bar in a strip club. How had that happened and how did it sit with the family back in Copper Lake?
The questions were nothing more than mild curiosity, she told herself, and she brushed them aside as easily as she gestured toward the hallway behind him. “Break’s over. I’ve got to go.”
He stood there a moment longer, then stepped aside. “Got to go entertain the budget committee,” he remarked, an odd note of something in his voice.
She didn’t try to figure out what it was, but slipped past him and went down the hall. When she turned into the dressing room doorway, he was still standing there. When she came out a moment later, he was gone. Relief seeped into her muscles, though she wasn’t about to examine why his presence—or absence—even registered.
As she approached the stage door, a new song started. Pop was the music of choice at Almost Heaven, though on occasion she opted for blues or something Latin, sensual and sexual and steamy. At the moment, even with no sign of Rick, she was happy to have the pop. It would keep things cool.
Keep her cool.
The stage lights were bright enough to make the customers shadowy, but there was nothing muted about their reception. There was a whistle or two, some applause, a murmur of encouragement as she wrapped herself around the pole. She used the pole much as a woman might use her lover, swaying around it, rubbing against it, sliding down until her knees were splayed, then rising again, twisting until the pole was centered in her back, repeating the long, languid slide down.
Her eyes were half closed, her lips half curved, as she let the music surround her. Dancing came as naturally to her as breathing. She heard a note or two, and her body began to sway. She didn’t have to think, plan or concentrate. The music took over, and everything else faded into the background. The voices, the heat that formed a sheen over her skin, the gazes and leers…none of it mattered. Only the music.
She loosened the chain around her waist, letting its length trickle between her fingers into a small mound at the base of the pole. The hook that secured her dress was next to go. With a shimmy, the gold lamé puddled at her feet, leaving her in a strapless black bra and a thong. The act brought the usual reaction, still muted in her music-dazed brain…then her muscles went taut. A shiver rippled along her skin, making her feel exposed; heat followed in its wake.
Opening her eyes, she searched for the gaze that could create such awareness through the haze, knowing before she saw him that it was Rick. He stood off to the side, just inside the door that led to the back hallway, arms crossed over his chest. He looked formidable enough to be a bouncer and drop-dead sexy enough to be any woman’s fantasy.
And he was watching her with enough intensity to make her feel like his fantasy.
She turned her back to him. He was a Calloway. He worked at the club. He was involved with Julia. More than enough reasons to keep her distance. But that didn’t stop the warmth from seeping deeper inside her. It didn’t stop her nipples from drawing into hard peaks. It didn’t stop the rush of desire that welled in her belly.
She felt like a newbie, experiencing the power of her own sexuality for the first time. Fine for an eighteen-year-old, way past ridiculous for her now. Focus on themusic. That was how she’d survived her first night—hell, her first month—on the job. How she’d survived twelve years.
It was how she would survive this dance.
After his last customer left, Rick headed straight for the back door. He wanted to be out quickly enough to miss Amanda. After her dance in the goddess outfit, he’d needed another break to get his body temperature somewhere close to normal. Unfortunately, Chad hadn’t been willing to extend his time at the bar, so Rick had gone back to work, hot, turned-on and confused.
Sure, she was beautiful, and her body was heart-attack-inducing, but she’d always been beautiful and it had never bothered him before. She hadn’t done anything that he hadn’t seen a thousand times before, but something—besides his hard-on—had changed. He just couldn’t figure out what. Was it because he’d talked to her? He’d been to her house? He’d seen her outside the club, being a normal woman in a normal life?
Maybe it was because he hadn’t gotten laid in a while. Undercover operations and women were difficult to manage at the same time, at least for him, so he tended not to mix the two. But he’d been on this job for less than three months. He wasn’t so sex-hungry that the first pretty woman could turn him into a horny kid. On this job in particular, he was surrounded by pretty women.
And Amanda was the prettiest of them all. The sexiest. The smartest. The most innocent. The one he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about in the past twenty-four hours.
The October night air held a chill that smelled faintly of the Dumpsters at the edge of the parking lot. He took the steps from the stoop to the pavement two at a time and was digging his keys from his pocket when headlights brightened the night. The finely tuned engine of a long white Mercedes broke the quiet as it glided to a stop a few feet in front of Rick.
A scrawny weasel of a guy jumped out of the front passenger seat and hurried around to open the rear door. Leaving his keys in his pocket, Rick watched as Rosey Hines slowly emerged from the car’s interior. Beyond the Mercedes—more of a necessity than a luxury, thanks to his bulk—Rosey didn’t flaunt his wealth. He wasn’t weighted down with gold, he didn’t dress flamboyantly and he wasn’t attended by a bunch of tough guys meant to intimidate. Rosey was intimidating enough by himself.
“Calloway,” he greeted with a nod.
“Mr. Hines.”
“How was business tonight?”
“Not bad.”
Rosey grinned. “It never is. I do have the best girls in town.”
Almost Heaven was one of the better clubs, Rick acknowledged. All the dancers were young, pretty and in shape. They didn’t need makeup to disguise needle marks or to hide the effects of too much booze; they didn’t look as if they lived on the fringes of respectable society. The clientele was better, too—businessmen, professionals. Few blue-collar types ever came through the door. With drinks starting at eighteen bucks and everything else going up from there, they couldn’t afford to.
“Is it Chad’s turn to lock up?” Rosey asked, and Rick nodded. According to Harry, Rosey knew his employees’ work hours better than they did, and he scheduled his visits to the club accordingly. He came only at closing time and only on nights when Chad was working late. That could be because Chad was Rosey’s cousin once removed, but Rick figured it was more likely because Chad was on Rosey’s payroll in more ways than one.
Behind Rick the door opened and soft soles slapped down the first few steps before stopping. Rosey’s gaze shifted past Rick and a smile crossed his face. “Amanda.”
Of course it was. Rick glanced over his shoulder just long enough to catch a glimpse of a T-shirt, snug jeans and sandals, then switched his gaze back to Rosey.
“Mr. Hines.” The footsteps resumed, then Amanda stopped again a few feet to Rick’s right.
“Aw, you don’t have to be formal around Calloway here,” Rosey said with a grin.
Amanda smiled, too. “Hey, Rosey. How’s your mother?”
“Enjoying her cruises way too much. She’s threatening to spend the rest of her life sailing.” Rosey tilted his head Rick’s way. “Calloway says the night wasn’t bad. Was it worth coming out or would you have preferred to stay home working on your bedroom?”
What the hell did Rosey know about Amanda’s bedroom? And for that matter, how the hell did she know anything about Rosey’s mother? He wasn’t the type to get too chummy with his employees—only those who had been with him a long time and were involved in his illegal enterprises. Did Amanda fall into that category, or was there something different between them? Either possibility was so repugnant that Rick had to stifle the impulse to step back and put distance between him and both Rosey and Amanda.
“—tips will pay for that pricey wallpaper I’ve been coveting,” she was saying when Rick tuned in. “Yeah, it was worth coming out. But it’s been a long night. I’ve got to get off my feet.”
“Me, too,” Rosey said, setting his girth in motion. “See you. You, too, Calloway.”
Rick stepped back to let him pass, followed by the weasel, as Amanda circled the rear of the car. After watching Rosey’s slow progress up the first couple steps, Rick headed in the opposite direction, catching up with her about the time she reached her car.
“You’re on a first-name basis with the boss?” he asked as she opened the rear door of her car and tossed her bag onto the seat.
Her glance didn’t quite reach his face. “I’ve known Rosey for years. He was the bouncer at the first club I ever worked at.”
“And twelve years later he owns five clubs.”
“He was always ambitious,” she replied with a shrug, making the glitter-and-paint Eiffel Tower on her shirt ripple.
“You’re ambitious, too,” he pointed out. “Going from Atlanta’s finest strip club to the staff of its most liberal college.”
“But because you’re not ambitious, that makes it a flaw of some sort in those of us who are?”
Rick rested one hand on the trunk of her car, leaning so his hip was against the rear panel. “What makes you think I’m not ambitious?”
Her whole manner became fluttery—her weight shifting from one foot to the other, her hand making a meaningless little gesture, her gaze sliding away from him, then skittering back again. “You have a college degree, yet you tend bar in a strip club.”
“Atlanta’s finest strip club,” he reminded her. “I said none of my college teachers looked like you. I didn’t say I stuck around long enough to graduate.”
Though he did. He’d started out in pre-law, like both of his grandfathers, his father, all of his uncles, one of his aunts and, after him, both of his younger brothers. But he’d known from the beginning that he was never going to be a lawyer. Half of the lawyers in the family had never practiced, Granddad Calloway had pointed out. They worked in the family business, protecting what generations before had built, adding on to their success. But they still had the degree. It was family tradition.
Rick hadn’t cared enough about tradition to spend the time and money earning a degree he would never use. Over Granddad’s protest, he had switched his major to criminal justice and he’d never regretted it.
“So did you graduate?” Amanda asked, toying with her keys.
No. A simple lie. He lied all the time on the job and was pretty damn good at it. He’d better be, since his life depended on it. But for reasons that wouldn’t bear close scrutiny, he didn’t want to lie at that moment. Instead he asked, “Does it make a difference? Does having a college degree make me smarter, better, more respectable? Does not having one mean I’m not respectable?”
Her gaze held steady for a moment, then the corners of her mouth tilted up. Before she could answer, though, his cell phone gave an annoying buzz. He fished it from his pocket, glanced at the screen, then flipped it open. “Hey, babe.”
“There’s my first clue that you’re not alone,” Julia said. “Are you still at the club?”
“I’m just heading out. I’m standing in the parking lot talking to Amanda.”
“Tell her hello for me.”
He dutifully did so, and Amanda offered her own hello loud enough for the cell phone to pick it up. He pivoted so he was leaning against the car, so Amanda was just a shadow in his peripheral vision instead of dead-on in front of him. “What are you doing up so late?”
“Getting used to the hours. Unpacking. Trying to decide whether to find suitable hiding places around the apartment for my weapons or if I’d just be safer wearing a pistol at all times.”
“Aw, it’s not that bad.” He’d been living there for three months. It wasn’t the sort of place Rick Calloway, GBI agent, would choose—his condo was in a much better part of town—but it was appropriate for Rick Calloway, bartender. “Listen, babe, I’m heading out. I’ll be home soon.”
“Don’t surprise me. I might shoot you,” Julia muttered.
With a laugh, he hung up, then fixed his attention on Amanda again. “What were we talking about?” He didn’t need a reminder: she’d been about to tell him that she was the last person who would judge someone else’s worth by the extent of his education. She’d been about to smile at him, which would have made him grateful the car he was leaning against would support his weight because it would have been questionable whether his legs could.
It was a good thing Julia had interrupted. A timely reminder to both him and Amanda that there was another woman in his life.
“I don’t remember, and at the risk of repeating myself, it’s been a long night. I’ve got to get off my feet. Tell Julia I’ll see her at noon.” With a grimace that was supposed to pass for a smile, she got into her car, started the engine and drove away.
Rick walked to his own car and, ten minutes later, he was climbing the stairs to his second-floor apartment. His boots clanged on the metal tread, with only the thin light from a nearby streetlamp to light the way. The bulb next to the door was burned out, broken or stolen again. He didn’t mind the dark—anything he couldn’t take care of himself, the pistol secured to his right calf could—but for Julia’s sake, he should check the bulb. Not that she would be going out without a pistol, either.
He knocked, then called out, “Hey, Jay, it’s me,” before unlocking the door. He stepped inside, dropping his keys on the table as he closed and locked the door. The jangle of the keys hitting the floor made him turn. And stare.
Ten hours ago he’d left the shabby apartment with its third-rate carpet and fourth-hand furniture. Now rugs covered much of the carpet and throws covered the furniture. The table that had stood next to the door was across the room now. His one measly lamp was gone, replaced by four others that lit up the room like midday, and the musty odor he’d come to associate with the place had been replaced by a fragrant candle scent.
Julia appeared in the hallway that led to two cramped bedrooms and the bathroom. She wore jeans and a T-shirt, with her Sig Sauer holstered on the waistband, but that wasn’t what made his eyes widen. He’d seen her in casual clothes before, and wearing a gun, too. But he’d never seen her with her hair thick and loose and curling around her face, or with a real makeup job, or looking pretty.
“Wow.”
Color heated her cheeks as she scooped a box from the dining table with jerky movements. “Grab that other box, will you?”
He picked it up, nothing too heavy, and carried it into the bedroom across the hall from his. This room had changed, too. When he’d left for work, it had been an empty room with no sheets on the mattress, no signs of use at all except for the running shoes piled on the floor and the fishing gear laid across the bed. Now those were gone, presumably dumped in his room, and there were more rugs, bedcovers in pale green, tons of pillows, a jewelry case on the dresser, clothes in the closet and shopping bags on the bed.
He set the box on the floor, then picked up one of the shopping bags. “I thought you were just bringing a few things until you passed your audition with Harry.”
“This is a few things.”
“Huh. I moved in three months ago with one suitcase and a box and haven’t needed anything else.”
“I noticed. You had three bath towels, three washcloths, two coffee cups, a bag of plastic spoons and a jar of instant coffee. No dishes, no dish soap, no sanitizer, no microwave, no books, no television, no stereo, no computer.”
“I travel light,” he said with a shrug as he looked inside the bag, then removed one of the shoes there. It hardly qualified for the name, with little more than a sole, a clear vinyl strap across the toes and another one that circled the ankle, each topped with a thin pink bow. The heel was slender and long, four or five inches, and could probably substitute as a weapon in the absence of anything else. “You gonna wear these?” he asked cynically, glancing from the heel to the flats neatly lined up on the closet floor.
Julia pulled both the shoe and the bag from his grasp. “I’m going to try.”
“What else did you buy?”
She grabbed for the other bag, but he got it first, emptying it on the bed. There was a garment that would have been worthy of the name shorts if it had an extra yard of material. A bra and bikini bottom made of silver mesh, with lengths of silver beads dangling from each hip and between the breasts. A navy blue dress, simple, straight, falling just to the hips and with no back. A bra, thong and breakaway skirt in fiery red.
“You gonna wear these?” he asked again, his brows raised to his hairline.
Her jaw tightened as she swept up everything and stuffed it back into the bag. “I’m going to try. Did Hines come by tonight?”
Sobering, Rick leaned against the edge of the dresser. “Yeah, just as I was leaving. Amanda’s on a first-name basis with him. Asked him about his mama.”
“They’ve both been in the exotic-dance business a long time.” Her nose wrinkled. “Roosevelt Hines and exotic dancing. There’s an image that’ll be hard to get rid of. You think she could be involved with him?”
No. But Rick kept his gut response inside and considered it rationally. It wouldn’t be the first time a woman had slept with her boss. Or the first time a beautiful woman had fallen for an unlikely man. And was Rosey really so unlikely? They were in the same business. He could have been a big help to her career in the past twelve years. He could have given her money, advice, contacts. And she would have given him…a pretty girl on his arm? All the sex the big man could handle?
But Rosey had a criminal record five miles long. Amanda had nothing more than a speeding ticket when she was twenty-two. He was scum who belonged in the underworld where he resided. She’d just been passing through to better things.
Though twelve years was an awfully long time to pass.
“Well?” Julia prodded. “You think Amanda has something going with Hines?”
“You’re a woman. What do you think?”
“I think if he came near me, I’d shoot him where it don’t grow back.”
“But?” With Julia, there was usually a but.
She shrugged, her hair shifting in soft waves. “A woman does what she has to. I’ve never been in Amanda’s place. I don’t know how she grew up, how she got to where she is today. I don’t know what she’s had to do.”
Rick didn’t know any of that about Amanda, either. The background the bureau had done on her was cursory—name, age, address, credit check, criminal record check. It had been sufficient for their purposes.
Now that he’d talked to her, it didn’t seem sufficient at all. He wanted to know a whole lot more.
“You know, we’re overlooking one possibility,” Julia said, clearing everything from the bed, then turning down the covers. The sheets were pastel green and white stripes, and the pillowcases matched, with the addition of tiny roses embroidered in bright pink. “She could actually like the guy.”
She could be a nice woman who’d become friends, nothing more, with her sleaze of a boss. Rick would rather think not, but it beat the other possibilities.
He pushed to his feet and went to the door. “Whatever the case, she’s leaving the business next month. You’ve got to be in place well before then.”
Julia nodded, her look less apprehensive than it had been before she’d met Amanda. Do you think she’ll loosenup enough to actually get onstage? he’d asked Amanda.
I don’t know, she’d said. A lot of people will dowhatever it takes to get what they want.
While Julia might not want to strip, she did want to succeed at her job. She would pull it off. For the first time since their boss had suggested it, Rick felt confident of that.
Then he thought again of Rosey and the way he’d smiled at Amanda. What about her? What had she done—what would she do—to get what she wanted?
Chapter 3
Wednesday was one of Amanda’s days off. Normally tips were good enough that she worked four days a week, though on occasion she had put in five or six days—when tuition was coming due, when her car needed a new transmission, when her aunt had asked for money for a divorce. Though Amanda hadn’t seen Dana in years, she’d given her the cash to pay the lawyer and the deposits on an apartment and utilities.
She hadn’t heard from Dana since. But that was all right. Amanda had to live with her conscience, Dana with hers.
“You want to get something to eat?”
Amanda looked at Julia, collapsed on the floor, one foot propped on the stripper’s pole. They’d spent the last four hours working, Julia mimicking moves before hesitantly trying a few of her own. She felt foolish, she’d admitted, but Amanda had already figured that out. Every stiff line of her body had screamed it.
But by the end, she’d been a little more relaxed. She’d shown something more than determination—a hint that someday this might come naturally to her.
“Sure,” Amanda agreed. She’d had a salad for lunch before Julia had arrived, but that seemed a long time ago.
“I’m supposed to meet Rick at that Mexican place down the block from the club at five-thirty. Is that okay?”
No, Amanda wanted to say. She’d agreed to a meal with Julia. It wasn’t fair to throw in Rick after the fact. She didn’t want to sit down at a table with him. Didn’t want to share a meal. Didn’t want to feel that intense gaze on her.
Didn’t want to be reminded that he had a thing with Julia.
“Yeah, sure,” Amanda said with an awkward smile. “That’ll give me time to shower.”
Julia sniffed, then her nose wrinkled. “Yeah. Me, too. I’ll see you there.”
Padding along quietly, Dancer followed them to the door, then trotted into the yard to take care of business. The dog sniffed the flowers, stopped to watch a squirrel in the neighbor’s yard, then stopped again to watch Julia drive away.
“Not in any hurry, are you, puppy?” Neither was Amanda. Wasn’t it enough that she saw Rick at the club?
But Dancer finally trotted back onto the porch. Amanda opened the screen door for her, then headed for the bathroom herself.
Ninety minutes later, she was showered and shampooed, smelling of exotic spices and looking like any thirty-year-old woman in faded jeans and a lace-edged T-shirt. Her still-damp curls were piled on her head none too tidily and her makeup was her toned-down everyday version. She looked fine for dinner with a friend.
Better than fine for dinner with that friend’s boyfriend.
The restaurant was three doors down from Almost Heaven, a mock-adobe hacienda with a red-tile roof and lush vines flowering everywhere. Amanda paused for a moment inside the door to let her eyes adjust to the dimmer light, then the hostess pointed out the corner where Rick waited. Alone.
The table was a half-round booth, barely big enough for three, and he sat with his back to the wall. He wore a white shirt, unbuttoned at the neck, sleeves rolled halfway up his forearms. His fingers were clasped around a practically full glass of beer, his head was tilted back and his eyes appeared to be closed.
“He’s a good-looking man,” the hostess murmured. “Do you suppose he has a father who’s available?”
Amanda shrugged. Gerald Calloway had been dead for as long as she could remember, but according to gossip, before his death he’d always been available.
She wove her way between tables and other early diners to the booth. About halfway there, she realized that his eyes had only appeared to be closed. Though he showed no signs of awareness, she felt the instant his gaze locked in on her.
When she slid onto the seat across from him, he raised his head and fully opened his eyes. “Hey.”
“Hey.” She ordered iced tea from the waiter who’d followed her, then gestured to the empty margarita glass beside him. “Where’s Julia?”
“In the bathroom. The margarita didn’t sit well on an empty stomach. She was too nervous to eat lunch before going to your house.”
Amanda nodded. “She did fine today.”
“Good.”
That was the extent of their conversation until Julia returned from the ladies’ room. She looked paler than usual and the smile she gave them both was sickly. Instead of waiting for Rick to stand up and let her slide into the middle, she bumped against him, pushing him over. He looked as if he wanted to protest—Amanda certainly wanted to—but moved, giving her his seat.
“Oh, man,” Julia said, patting her face with her napkin. “No booze ever again. I see why you don’t drink.”
Since Rick was sipping his beer at that moment, Amanda assumed the comment was directed to her. “I work too hard to stay in shape. If I’m going to splurge, it’s going to be on chocolate and ice cream.”
Rick gave her a long look—at least, the part of her he could see. “You don’t look like you ever splurge.” His voice was normal, his comment a simple statement. But it was the look that sent a tiny shiver down her spine, that raised her temperature a degree.
The look, and the fact that his girlfriend was sitting right next to him, oblivious.
Amanda turned her attention to the menu, though she always ordered the same thing. Better than looking at Rick, though, and feeling that little sexual tingle, or looking at Julia and feeling guilty.
After placing their orders with the waiter, Amanda and Julia chatted about pretty much nothing until the food came. Halfway through the meal, Julia put her fork down, pushed her plate away and fixed her gaze on Amanda. “Would it be okay if I come by the club some night and just watch?”
The memory of Rick “watching” the night before streaked through Amanda, leaving heat and edginess behind. It made her throat tighten, made her hand tremble when she picked up her glass for a sip. “That’s what we’re there for,” she replied with a smile she couldn’t hold for more than a moment.
“I think maybe I could learn something. Could I meet some of the other dancers, too?”
“Sure. Anytime you want.” Preferably on Rick’s night off, though he’d be likely to accompany her. He’d said he wanted to keep an eye on her, hadn’t he?
Amanda’s father was the first and last man to care about keeping her safe. He’d lost the physical ability to protect her when she was six, but emotionally, he’d been there for her until the day he died. She missed that. Missed having someone who would worry if she didn’t come home. Missed having someone to share things with.
She missed having a man in her life.
“Are you friends with all of them?” Julia asked, then smiled deprecatingly. “I know I’m probably totally naive, but I imagine it’s like some kind of sisterhood. You know, exotic dancers united against the rest of the world.”
Amanda glanced at Rick, leaned back, one arm resting on the seat cushion at Julia’s back, apparently content to listen to the conversation without contributing, then she shrugged. “I’m friendly with all of them, but not necessarily friends. It’s like any group of women who work together. Some are nice. Some aren’t. Some are competitive. Some are jealous. The younger girls are looking for friends or mentors—or mothers,” she added drily, thinking of the eighteen-and nineteen-year-old kids she’d helped along. Even when she was nineteen, she’d felt years older.
“How old do you have to be to dance?”
“Eighteen most places.”
“How old were you?”
She finished the last of her tea and folded her hands in her lap. “Eighteen.”
Julia shook her head. “Wow. I was finishing high school and starting college then. And you—” she elbowed Rick “—were probably raising hell back home at eighteen and making everyone grateful you were leaving for college, too.”
“Hey, there were plenty of people who were sorry to see me go,” he protested.
“Let me guess. All of them female and under the age of twenty.”
“Twenty-two.” His gaze narrowed, as if he were thinking hard, then relaxed again. “No, twenty-four.”
Julia laughed. Mention of girls in his past didn’t seem to faze her at all. She must trust him a lot, Amanda thought, and envied her that. Most of the men in her past had been trustworthy only about as far as she could have thrown them.
“How did you get into dancing?” Julia asked, including Amanda in the conversation again.
“I had a friend who danced. She badgered me into auditioning and…” She shrugged as if to say, Here I am. And it was basically true. Just the shortened version. She had intended the dancing to be a temporary thing, just something that was fun and would give her a little extra cash to make life easy for once. Financially, life had gotten easier, practically from the first day. Emotionally, it had taken a nosedive. Her mother and her aunt had both objected strenuously—first to the dancing, then to her. They’d wheedled, coaxed, demanded, judged and damned, and her relationship with them had never recovered.
The waiter began clearing dishes from the table. “Would you like some dessert? Fried ice cream, flan, sopaipillas?”
“Sopaipillas,” Rick said. “With three spoons.”
Amanda’s mouth watered, though she was experienced at resisting temptation. She took a sidelong look at Rick and reminded herself: very
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