In Bed With The Wild One: In Bed With The Wild One / In Bed With The Pirate
Colleen Collins
Julie Kistler
At this B&B there are beds–and bachelors–galore!In Ben With The Wild OneCorporate lawyer Emily Chaplin's life was boring–with a capital B! Until the day she got caught up in a mystery and met the wildest, sexiest man of her life–Tyler O'Toole. Suddenly Emily craved the daily excitement of hunting down the bad guys with outrageous Tyler. Why, she even got a tattoo and bought some sexy red lingerie just for fun! Now Emily was ready for her next adventure…doing the wild thing with the Wild One!In Bed With The PirateBed-and-breakfast owner Kate Corrigan had always been fascinated (all right, make that a little obsessed) with pirates. But lately, one man had blazed his way into her secret pirate fantasies–her neighbor Toby Mancini. But that didn't make sense–Toby was uptight, conservative and very, very proper. Still, a girl could dream, couldn't she? Only, Kate would never have dreamed her fantasy man would show up on her doorstep–sexy, swashbuckling…snf in hid underwear!
Dear Reader,
Welcome to another fun-filled month of Duets!
Duets #29
Award-winning author Kristin Gabriel returns this month with Beauty and the Bachelor, the last book in the delightful CAFÉ ROMEO trilogy, about a coffee shop that doubles as a dating service. What better place to find both lattes and love! And talented Gwen Pemberton delivers Counterfeit Daddy, the tale of a sexy bachelor hero who poses as a family man in order to impress his gorgeous female boss!
Duets #30
Author Julie Kistler teams up this month with Colleen Collins to serve up BEDS & BACHELORS, two linked stories about a romantic but unusual B & B in San Francisco. Every bedroom has a movie theme! Julie’s tale, In Bed with the Wild One, is a romp about a mousy heroine who sets off to have an adventure with the bad-boy hero. Then B & B owner Kate encounters her very own fantasy man in In Bed with the Pirate.
I hope you enjoy both Duets volumes this month!
Birgit Davis-Todd
Senior Editor, Harlequin Duets
In Bed with the Wild One/In Bed with the Pirate
In Bed with the Wild One
Julie Kistler
In Bed with the Pirate
Colleen Collins
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Contents
In Bed with the Wild One (#u1276f37a-424a-5c36-a74c-35c29478db2b)
Chapter 1 (#u8aa3168b-1ae9-568c-b6ba-57831c25655c)
Chapter 2 (#ubccdf98e-54dd-54c7-9d8f-a48c65cfc255)
Chapter 3 (#u61ef5764-0cb9-5028-b898-e97f8875e8a0)
Chapter 4 (#ufeeb596d-4e81-57ff-9eb1-4299287ba78d)
Chapter 5 (#u04cb8acb-b56a-559a-8678-357020af809e)
Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
In Bed with the Pirate (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 1 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 2 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 3 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 4 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 5 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
In Bed with the Wild One
The innkeeper grinned at Tyler.
“I’ve got the perfect themed bedroom for you. The Wild One. You get to sleep under Marlon Brando’s picture. Cool, huh?”
“The Wild One?” Tyler looked bemused. “I can’t wait.”
An eavesdropping Emily couldn’t wait, either. She knew that movie. Leather jackets, motorcycles. Bad attitude. She tried to contain her growing excitement. Wow.
She continued to peek as he signed the register. He was so sexy. He had this hard-edged, smoky attitude that just screamed sex and lust and bad, bad things. Perfect for a good girl like her.
The minute Tyler disappeared up the stairs, Emily moved to the desk. Maybe there would be a Mata Hari room with her name on it, she mused. Or Xena, Warrior Princess. “I’d like a room, please.”
“Only one left, I’m afraid.” The innkeeper beamed. “But it’s just perfect for someone like you. Pollyanna…”
“Pollyanna…?” Sheesh. Emily might have known. Tyler was The Wild One and she was Pollyanna. And never the twain would meet….
Dear Reader,
Welcome to the world of Beau’s B & B! When Colleen Collins and I put our heads together to come up with a concept for a linked Duets volume, even the conversation was hilarious. We had so much fun, I can hardly remember who came up with what. I’m pretty sure the matchmaker angle was Colleen’s and I think the cat was my idea. But the eccentric B & B with the goofy, movie-themed rooms…Well, that could have come from anywhere.
But then I drove poor Colleen bananas when I kept changing the name of my hero’s bedroom. It only became “The Wild One” after we met with our editor, Malle Vallik, in Chicago. The three of us tripped out to dinner in 103 degree heat, ending up at a gorgeous restaurant where we laughed ourselves silly and probably embarrassed our waiter to death. Oh, well. We had fun! The best part is that this BEDS & BACHELORS concoction ended up exactly the way I’d hoped it would—funny, romantic, sexy and a little crazy. Many thanks to Colleen, Malle and Birgit Davis-Todd for making this such a pleasure to work on.
Enjoy!
Julie Kistler
To Colleen and Malle, who were the most fun and entertaining collaborators anyone could wish for.
Chapter 1
“EMILY, IS THAT YOU? Sneaking in late? Surprise, surprise!”
Emily Chaplin stopped in her tracks. It just figured. This Friday morning in June was the first time in her entire goody-two-shoes life she’d ever been late for anything. And now she was caught red-handed, tiptoeing her way down the hall to her office, by Alissa Bergman of all people, the snoopiest, most competitive lawyer in the firm.
Emily wavered there, unsure whether to respond to or just ignore Alissa. She’d figured if she hid behind sunglasses and kept her head down, dodged the law firm’s main reception area and took the stairs, surely she could sneak into her office before anyone saw her.
No such luck.
Of course, when you were among the lowly associates at Chaplin, Chaplin & Chaplin, Attorneys-at-Law, all competing to make partner someday, your co-associates watched your every move, eager to rat you out to the senior partner. They all knew the big guy was a stickler for associates making their quota of billable hours each and every day. It didn’t help that the big guy also happened to be Emily’s father. And he rode his family members harder than anyone.
“Emily, Emily,” Alissa murmured, making a little tsk-tsk sound. “I heard you were out with Kip Enfield from the eighth floor last night. Had a late night, did we? Did the Kipster get lucky?”
Emily stiffened. “As if.”
As a matter of fact, she did blame Kip for the fact that she’d overslept and missed her ride in to the city. But not because they’d had such a hot time. Au contraire!
Kip was just the latest terrible fix-up in her never-ending series of them. Her father the senior partner, her mother the judge, her older brothers, all four of whom were lawyers—they all insisted on matching her up with eligible but insufferable young attorneys. It didn’t matter that the men bored her silly and sent her running back to the bathtub and a book about sexy spies and hard-boiled private eyes. Her well-meaning family members kept roping her into these horrible dates, no matter how much she protested.
Was it her fault the lawyers they set her up with were as limp as old noodles, while the men in the books were exciting, dark, dangerous and very, very stimulating? They saved the free world, they uncovered conspiracies, they fought off bad guys in dark alleys. They grabbed life in both hands and didn’t let go.
Whereas Kip Enfield…“Gag me,” she said out loud. He was the worst, the absolute worst. He wasn’t just stultifyingly dull—no, he was pompous, irritable, and el cheapo to boot. Dinner with Kip had stretched out endlessly while he droned on about the wine and the beef and his fine palate. After all that torture, he’d made a big point of tipping only two percent because he didn’t like the service. Exactly two percent—which took him about half an hour to figure out. Emily had to run back at the last minute on a pretext, unable to stand the idea of leaving such a pathetic tip.
So by the time Kip pulled his Beemer up the circular driveway of the Chaplins’ suburban home, she was more than ready to dump him. Except that he insisted on coming into the house—dying to sip the senior partner’s brandy out of the senior partner’s snifter, no doubt—and she couldn’t get rid of him no matter how many hints she dropped. Hours later, after several attempts to kiss her, paw her and cajole her into a little horizontal bingo, Kip finally consented to leave. She’d practically wept with relief.
After that fiasco, she could hardly help it if she’d slept for a full nine hours, just as a defense mechanism. At least her dreams were entertaining, unlike Kip Enfield.
“I’m never dating another lawyer as long as I live,” Emily declared. “In fact, I may never date anyone. I’ve got that last-straw feeling.”
But first things first. Pulling off her sunglasses, she focused on a point over Alissa’s shoulder and lowered her voice. “Is that Daddy, rounding the corner to your office, Alissa? Uh-oh. And you’re here in the hall, chatting with me. That can’t look good.”
It was a complete and total lie, but Alissa was out of there so fast she barely left a vapor trail.
With a small smile of satisfaction, Emily turned on her heel and ducked inside her own office, safely closing the door behind her. Trying to work up some enthusiasm for the day ahead, she took off her jacket and neatly hung it up, parked herself behind the desk, and then stared at the mountain of paperwork for five minutes. Ugh.
Finally she cracked open the Bentley file on the top of the stack. As the minutes dragged by, she fiddled with a pen, chewing on the end, staring into space, scribbling notes here and there about the tax implications of one small subsection of a client’s proposed reorganization plan. It was so dull she almost nodded off right there at Part B(11), subparagraph 3(a)(iv).
“Okay, maybe I should listen to my voice mail,” she decided. Maybe someone fun might have called. But who did she know who was remotely fun?
Maybe a distant relative, or even better, an old boyfriend, who desperately needed her to fly to Istanbul or Zanzibar tonight. Yeah, right. All the Chaplins, even the distant ones, were so boring they made the Bentley file seem exciting by comparison. As for old boyfriends…well, she had one or two, but the only thing they’d be calling for was help on their taxes.
Okay, so maybe Sukie Sommersby, her goofy sorority sister from college, might call out of the blue. Sukie was always getting into trouble. The last time Emily had heard from her, Sukie had just woken up with a new husband in a Vegas hotel and needed info on quickie divorces.
“Why don’t I ever wake up with new husbands in Las Vegas?” Emily asked out loud. Hoping to hear something, anything exciting or different, she pressed the button for her voice mail.
Bad idea. There were three messages from Kip to tell her again how much he’d enjoyed last night, two from her oldest brother Rick—the doofus who’d set her up with Kip—wanting to know how it went, and one from her mother, the bankruptcy court judge, who had a new clerk she thought might be a good match for her daughter—not to mention at least one annoying message from each of her three other brothers, all of whom offered unwanted advice on her career, her car or her love life.
She felt like screaming. And that was before she heard the voice mail from her father, who had apparently called every ten minutes between eight-thirty and ten, demanding to know when the hell she was going to put in an appearance and reminding her that being a Chaplin did not bring her any special privileges at Chaplin, Chaplin & Chaplin.
“Sukie Sommersby would never stand for this!”
Without pausing to think about it, Emily stood up and grabbed her purse and briefcase, heading for the door in a blur. She called to the secretary, “I’m taking my laptop and one of the Bentley files out of the office, and I won’t be back for a while. I’ve got my cell phone in case anyone needs me.”
As if anyone would need her for anything truly important. She was a tax lawyer, for goodness’ sake. Her life was occupied with subparagraphs of footnotes to the tax code. It was as boring as boring could be.
As she hit the street, turning her face into the bright light of the Chicago summer, Emily’s mood only grew gloomier. What was the problem? Sure, the stale routine of her normal life was getting her down, but she was out of the office, wasn’t she? And the good thing about getting to work so late was that it was almost time for lunch.
“Café Allegro,” she murmured. Maybe that would make her feel better. After all, didn’t she eat lunch at Café Allegro every day? And didn’t she order the same tall glass of iced tea with a sprig of mint and the same low-fat grilled-chicken salad? Day in, day out.
It was calming, familiar and serene. Just what she needed. Right?
But her feet seemed to get sticky and slow as she wound her way down Ontario Street. She made it right up to the cool brass door of Café Allegro. But when it was time to walk in, Emily found herself paralyzed, stuck, unable to take even one more step forward. It was as if the weight of her same old routine had suddenly settled on her shoulders like a five-hundred-pound gorilla.
She pulled her hand away from the door. She wheeled. And she took off down Ontario Street as if the odious Kip Enfield himself were stalking her. She didn’t stop until she hit a dark, vaguely grimy coffee shop, a place that smelled of fried onions and greasy hamburgers. The Rainbow Rest-O-Rant.
Not what anyone would expect from Emily Chaplin—which was exactly why she was going in.
Clutching her briefcase, Emily veered into the dingy restaurant. It was mostly empty, so she had no trouble finding a booth. Scooting in, she decided this place was definitely nothing like Café Allegro. The two eating establishments were less than a block, but a whole world, apart.
She grabbed some paper napkins out of the dispenser on the table, wiping them quickly over the bench seat and the top of the table. It wasn’t the grime that bothered her, though. For some reason, she found herself pondering who had carved all those initials and messages into the wood, wondering how much Marco really loved Missy, and whether Tootie and BoBo were really Friends 4-Ever.
Her reverie was broken abruptly when a rather hard looking waitress wearing a name tag that said “Jozette” slapped down a plastic menu in front of her. The woman didn’t bother to smile, just raised a painted-on eyebrow as she poured coffee into one of the cups on the table. “You know whatcha want?”
“Uh, no. Not exactly. I think I need a minute.” Emily peered down at the menu, unwilling to actually touch it. She might be taking a walk on the wild side, but she wasn’t insane. She noted that someone seemed to have spilled ketchup on all the important parts of the lunch section, making it impossible to read. “Do you have any specials?” she asked hopefully.
“No, I don’t got any specials. What do I look like, freakin’ Café Allegro?” snapped Jozette. “I also don’t got all day. My chili is growing legs back there.” When Emily still didn’t come up with anything she wanted to eat, the woman stalked off. “Lemme know when you decide,” she snapped over her shoulder.
Sheesh. Life got tough when you ventured outside your comfort zone.
Using another napkin for protection, Emily flipped her menu over, looking for inspiration. Idly she tried a sip of the coffee. Whoa. The stuff was so strong she rubbed a finger across her front teeth to make sure they were still there. She opened four sugar packets and five little creamer cups and sloshed them in. Better. Not really drinkable, but better. Meanwhile, she distinctly made out the words “banana split” behind a smear of something brown—syrup?—on the back of the menu.
Well, why not? I’ve never had a banana split for lunch.
She scanned the premises, prepared to signal Jozette that she was ready to order, but the surly waitress was nowhere to be found. After a moment, Emily gave up looking for her, content to wait until Jozette wandered back on her own. Emily was in no hurry.
Closing her sticky menu, she set it aside and pulled out the newest Trick McCall novel, which she just happened to have in her briefcase. She’d bookmarked the spot where she’d had to stop last night. It had really been annoying to leave her book and her bubble bath to go out with that stupid Kip Enfield, just when Trick had been beaten to a pulp by a couple of hoods who’d double-crossed him. But Trick McCall didn’t go down without a fight.
Emily scanned the page eagerly. Trick tried to sit up, but the pain in his gut was like a bucket of hot lead.
A few people drifted in, a few people drifted out, dishes clattered, coffee was poured, and life went on in the outlying areas of the Rest-O-Rant. Nobody passed near her, and Emily stayed intent on what she was reading.
“Damn,” Trick swore under his breath. He couldn’t pass out. Not yet. Not before he knew where Rico and the Ice Man had stashed the loot…
“You have to come up with the money,” a low, heated voice said fiercely. “Listen to what I say, Slab. We’re past desperate here. We’re right over the brink into disaster.”
Wait a minute. Slab? There was no one named Slab in this book. And that hadn’t been a voice inside her head. That was real. Out loud.
Confused, Emily looked up from the page, toward the source of the intriguing voice. Her gaze slid right through the gap between her booth and the next, snagging when it caught the face of the man who’d spoken. And what a face…
She swallowed. She felt her cheeks suffuse with heat.
Whoever he was—this man who was teetering on the brink of disaster—he looked amazing.
She didn’t know who or what he was, his name, what he was doing there, any of those important details. It didn’t matter. All she needed was one glance at that gorgeous, dangerous face, all hard angles and stormy shadows, the hint of stubble, the carelessly cut dark hair that brushed the collar of his battered leather jacket. And she knew him down to her bones.
She had an overwhelming desire to toss aside the adventures of Trick McCall, private eye, and toss herself over the divider into his booth.
“You pay up now, Slab,” he muttered, “or we’ll both be in too deep to shovel out.”
Pay up? In too deep to shovel out? This sounded an awful lot like the book she’d just been reading. How very exciting! Easing herself up and around to one side, trying not to make any noise, she craned her neck enough to get a glimpse of this Slab person through the shabby fronds of a plastic plant attached to the top of the divider. Holy smokes. She could see where Slab got his name. The man had shoulders the size of a minivan and a face like a hunk of concrete.
“But, Tyler, I ain’t got the dough,” Slab responded, sounding higher and whinier than she would have expected from someone that large. She couldn’t completely make out his next words, but it was clear he was offering excuses.
So the gorgeous one’s name was Tyler. First or last? Who cared? Tyler. She tried it on her tongue and decided she liked the feel of it.
“Yeah, well, if you don’t fork over some cash like yesterday, I’m the one who’ll take the heat,” Tyler returned. “You owe me, Slab. You owe me big-time.”
“I could knock over another bank,” the big lug offered cheerfully, and Emily caught her breath.
Knock over another bank? Who were these people?
“Keep your voice down, will you?” After that command, Tyler dropped his own volume as well, and Emily had to really concentrate to get any of their conversation. Darn it, anyway. This was fascinating.
Tyler said something about “the Feds.” Was it, you know the Feds are on our tail? Or, who knows if the Feds have the details? Good show the Feds let you out on bail? She chided herself for jumping to conclusions. For all she knew, he’d just said that Joe Fezz didn’t pay retail.
He added in an ominous tone, “You never know where they have wiretaps and informants parked. Let’s be smart about this.”
Okay, so she was right the first time. Slowly Emily slid as far down into her seat as she could go. She was only five-four, but she wasn’t taking any chances that they might catch a glimpse of her and take her innocent eavesdropping for something more sinister. Who knew what these two were involved in? Just because Tyler was a major babe was no reason to think he wasn’t a hoodlum.
She tried to remember what she’d heard so far. Let’s see…Tyler needed Slab to fork over some cash that was owed to him or dire things would happen. Slab didn’t have the money, but was willing to rob a bank to get it. And not just rob a bank. Rob another bank. And the FBI was apparently sniffing around.
If she had any sense, she would run, not walk, out of the Rainbow Rest-O-Rant. But she couldn’t help herself—she leaned in closer to the divider so she could make out more of their soft, tantalizing words. Slab mumbled something she couldn’t catch, but Tyler’s words came back fast and furious.
“Listen to me,” he whispered angrily, “don’t even think about any more bank jobs. You got caught the last two times, and that means you better retire already.”
Ooh, this was getting good. Slab had a criminal record but was none too bright and wanted to do it again, while the awesome Tyler was trying to keep him away from more criminal activity.
Maybe he was some kind of counselor, she mused, like for some ex-con twelve-step program.
“Do you know how much you’re already into me for?” Tyler went on. “I trusted you, Slab. I know—that makes me every bit as stupid as you, but I trusted you. And now you need to do right by me. You said you could come up with the money. Or we both know I’m out on the street.”
That made no sense for a counselor. A loan shark, maybe? She ventured another glance through the slats. World’s best-looking loan shark?
But Jozette, the world’s crankiest waitress, chose that moment to come back. After stopping to refill the coffee at Tyler’s table, trading chitchat and good-natured insults and making it very clear they were old pals, she finally sauntered around to Emily’s side of the booths. Quickly Emily pretended to be absorbed in her book so that Jozette didn’t shout, “Hey, I think we got your FBI snitch right here!” or something equally scary.
As quietly as she could manage, Emily ordered the banana split she’d completely forgotten. She waited impatiently for Jozette to vamoose so she could go back to listening. Meanwhile, the men in the next booth were still arguing in the same hushed, urgent tones.
“Look,” Slab said finally, half-rising in his seat. “There’s only one way. I’m gonna have to get out of town.”
“Are you nuts?” Tyler retorted.
She felt sure she heard something about Slab not being allowed to leave the jurisdiction—or maybe both of them—and then the name “Fat Mike,” which sounded very familiar. A local mobster? Emily quickly added these clues to the others she’d already amassed. Couldn’t leave the jurisdiction…if Slab were out on bail and unable to leave the area, would that make Tyler his bail bondsman?
“I gotta do it, Ty,” the big guy continued. “It’s the only way! I gotta go to Frisco.”
“Slab, keep it down, will you?”
No, no, Emily wanted to plead. Talk louder! But no one cared what she thought.
Slab mumbled something about “real loot, plenty to make us even,” and then “stashed in Frisco.” That was followed by a string of words that went right past her, and Emily leaned her whole head into the plastic plant to try to pick up more of it.
“Money…stashed,” Slab whispered, as something akin to a wistful smile crossed his blunt features. “Sweet Shanda. Best time I ever had was with Sweet Shanda.”
Emily started to get excited. This was kind of like charades. And she thought she had it! Slab had hidden his money in San Francisco with an ex-girlfriend named Shanda.
Tyler’s next words were very low, but the intent was unmistakable. “If you go to San Francisco,” he said, “Fat Mike will kill you. And maybe me, for good measure.”
Emily shivered. Had he really said “kill”? As in, dead? Nobody would really kill someone who looked like Tyler, would they? And waste all that potential?
But the gigantic man shook his head, his voice rising as he argued. “I owe you, man. And Fat Mike will get off both our backs if I come up with the dough. I’m going, and I’m gonna get it.”
“Forget it—”
“Damn it!” Slab bellowed, pounding a huge fist on the table and making the coffee cups bounce. “I’m going to get my stash!”
There was a long pause from their booth, as Tyler seemed to bide his time before speaking. “Sit down,” he said finally, in a dark, curt tone that didn’t brook objections. Slab sat. Emily could feel the reverberations all the way over on her side.
Angry words went back and forth, a “get a grip” followed by “I gotta do what I gotta do,” with Tyler getting colder and Slab becoming more and more agitated. Leaning across the table, the big guy distinctly brought up “Sweet Shanda” again and then something about the money had better be where he left it or he would “tear her apart with my bare hands.”
Emily felt chilled to the bone. Eavesdropping on criminals was one thing, but when they started contemplating taking women apart with their bare hands, it was going too far.
Finally the big guy raised his entire bulk from the booth, pushing himself to his feet with some effort. “I know what I gotta do,” he bellowed.
After mumbling a few more things Emily didn’t catch, he stomped his way out of the coffee shop, apparently determined to assault some poor woman named Shanda in San Francisco in order to recover ancient ill-gotten gains.
Tyler sent a wary glance around the place, clearly wondering whether anyone had overheard the outburst. Emily noted that, except for her, the diner’s few patrons appeared to be very good at minding their own business. And unless Tyler happened to lean forward and look in just the right place, he wasn’t going to see her, either. There were some benefits to being small.
Emily tucked herself even farther down into her bench seat, just to be sure, as she wondered what she should do next. Frankly, she was appalled. Had she just heard criminal activity being planned, and if so, as a lawyer and thereby an officer of the court, was she obligated to pull out her cell phone and report it to the police? Would they believe her if she did? And what would that mean for Tyler, the scowling, handsome ne’er-do-well who had done his best to dissuade the evil Slab from his crime spree?
Her head was spinning. Maybe she should at least call her mother the judge. But she was a bankruptcy judge. What would she remember about criminal law? Plus then Mom would know Emily was out eating banana splits in seedy dives and not at work. And then Dad would know, too, and she’d end up the first Chaplin in three generations to be fired from Chaplin, Chaplin & Chaplin.
Besides, she wasn’t absolutely sure there was anything wrong in what she’d heard. For all she knew, Slab had done his time, was completely reformed, and wasn’t allowed to leave the area because…well, there had to be some decent explanation. And if she started calling police and judges, she’d just make a fool of herself, making a mountain out of a molehill of stray words and overheard bits and pieces. Who knew anything for sure?
“Damn it.” Tyler interrupted her frantic thoughts as he, too, rose to his feet. He threw some money on the table, muttering under his breath. “I have to go after him.”
So maybe he was a bounty hunter? A bounty hunter with a heart?
Whatever he was, Emily gulped and hid behind her book as he crossed around the booths and passed right by her. She peeked over the cover, absently noting how well his weathered jeans wrapped his tight bottom, how wide his shoulders were under that leather jacket, how fearsome the expression on his handsome face…ooh, green eyes. She hadn’t been able to tell before, but now she could. Definitely green. Not the color of emeralds or grass or even a Christmas tree. What was that color?
One thing she’d say for him—he might be involved in a mess, but he was hot.
As she watched his every move, he cut near the counter where Jozette was just emerging with Emily’s banana split, and then he bolted up a set of stairs tucked in beside the rest rooms.
As the waitress ambled over and shoved the ice cream in front of her, Emily narrowed her eyes at the stairs. What was up there? And what was Tyler doing?
But before she’d had a chance to piece together a theory, he came barreling back down the stairs. “Jo?”
The waitress turned away from Emily’s table. “Yeah, babe. Whatcha need?”
He cocked his head, indicating he wanted to talk to her by the counter. She hotfooted it over there, which said volumes about how much more she valued Tyler’s business than anyone else’s.
As the two of them talked, Emily set her book down, absentmindedly picking up her spoon. With an overflowing scoop of banana, ice cream and hot fudge camouflaging her, she gazed in their general direction, wondering what in the world they were discussing.
“I’m telling ya, lay off,” Jozette said finally, in an aggrieved tone that was loud enough for Emily to hear. “I wanna do this. I got a credit card—it ain’t like real money—and you’re good for it. I know you, Tyler. You’ll pay up the minute you get back from San Francisco.”
Tyler tried to protest, but Jozette cut him off, laying a hand on his arm with a gesture that seemed downright friendly. “Ty, listen. I never did pay you what I owed you. Somebody’s gotta follow the big jerk and make sure he gets back in one piece. I can’t, so you gotta. Least I can do is get you on an airplane.”
After a long pause, he said reluctantly, “Yeah, okay. Get me an aisle seat, will you? I’ll just go upstairs, you know, pack a few things. Be back in a sec,” he called out as he headed for the stairs. He turned back. “And Jo—thanks.”
Going to San Francisco, Emily sang in her head, leaving out the part about wearing flowers in your hair. And Jozette was apparently paying his way, which implied some relationship between Mr. Cool and the hardbitten waitress. There was no way she would believe the two of them had, well, a thing. It was more as if he had done Jozette some major favor in the past—kind of like the Godfather or something.
Very curious. Biding her time until the tantalizing Tyler came waltzing back down those stairs, Emily decided that she could honestly say she’d never been confronted with anything remotely this intriguing in her entire life. Crimes, misdemeanors, mystery men, hidden loot, bank robberies, felons on the lam…
“You come to work late. You eat lunch at a new place. You break your cosmic routine. And all hell breaks loose,” she whispered.
Emily smiled. What fun!
Chapter 2
TYLER O’TOOLE TOSSED his toothbrush and a couple of extra T-shirts into a beat-up duffel bag.
“Damn it all to hell.” The last thing he wanted was to run to San Francisco to play baby-sitter for a loser like Joseph “Slab” Slabicki. But what else was he going to do? “Worst client I ever had,” he said darkly.
And he’d had some doozies in his short and unproductive legal career. So when he said Slab was the worst, that was going some. His clients were mostly lowlifes and petty thieves. Sure, they deserved a defense as much as anyone else. If only they paid better.
And if only their problems would quit sucking him into legal problems of his own. He’d already had the ethics committee of the bar association breathing down his neck—twice—over the way he’d handled a couple of cases for lesser lights in Fat Mike’s organization. Allegations of jury tampering and money laundering. Right. As if his clients had the cash to pay off jurors or launder money. That was way too liquid for his flea-bitten legal practice.
“Lie down with dogs, get fleas, and don’t even get a bone. Yeah, Ty, old boy. Real smart. You know, you might want to think about making some changes in this so-called life of yours.”
Excellent idea. As soon as this was over.
He threw a few more things into the bag and zipped it up, aware he had to get done and get out of there if he had any chance of pulling this off. Sure. All he had to do was follow Slab to San Francisco, find the mope before he did anything stupid, keep him from getting killed or arrested, and get them both back to Chicago in time for Slab’s preliminary hearing on Monday.
Because if he didn’t, Fat Mike would be out the dough he’d put up for Slab’s bail. And then there would be hell to pay.
Not to mention more scrutiny from the ethics committee over just how involved he was in Slab’s flight from the jurisdiction. Fugitive from justice. Aiding and abetting. Yeah, it sounded just great.
And then he was getting squeezed from the other side, too—the Feds investigating Fat Mike, who were none too subtle about pressuring potential witnesses into cooperation.
“This is a lose-lose situation,” Tyler muttered, making his way back down the stairs to the coffee shop. And a fool’s errand. But it was also his only shot at keeping the wolf—and Fat Mike—from his door.
“Hey, Jo,” he called as he hit the bottom step, “do you mind watching my place for a couple of days while I’m out of town? Only open it up for a search warrant, okay?”
“No prob, Tyler. I got you covered.” She glanced down at the counter where she’d scribbled some notes. “You’re leaving from O’Hare. I got you on a two-o’clock flight.”
“Terrific. Thanks again.” He paused. “I should be back by Monday. I’d better be back by Monday.”
And with that, he picked up his bag and headed to the street to look for a cab. He hoped he could cover the fare to the airport.
EMILY SAT THERE over the melting remains of her banana split, listening, thinking, planning.
“The only thing I can do is follow him,” she whispered, growing more sure with every word. “I’m a lawyer, aren’t I? And it sure sounds like he’s going to need one.”
After all, if Tyler was dangling from the precipice of legal troubles, maybe she could help him, keep his creepy friend from taking any old girlfriends apart with his bare hands, and get the adventure of a lifetime while she was at it.
It sounded a lot better than sitting in Chicago with Kip Enfield and the Bentley file.
Emily dropped a twenty-dollar bill on the table and grabbed her things. She still had time to catch him. And she’d always wanted to say, Follow that cab!
SHE SAW HIM JUMP OUT of a taxi and head into the terminal at O’Hare just as her own cab was pulling up behind it. On the trip to the airport from the city, she’d had plenty of time to rethink her impromptu plan, but she hadn’t. In fact, she was more set on it now than she’d ever been. It was only for the weekend, after all. He’d said very clearly he’d be back on Monday. And didn’t lots of people throw together last-minute weekend plans?
Besides, hadn’t she begged for something wild and new to happen? What more could you ask for?
“Sukie Sommersby would do it,” she repeated to herself as she followed him into the terminal. As he approached the ticket counter, Emily quickly ducked behind a large family and their immense pile of luggage, to stay out of Tyler’s sight line.
Pretending to be absorbed in a cartful of golf bags, she added, “Sukie would do it in a New York minute. Sukie would be waking up in Vegas with him tomorrow, no regrets. And then she’d be calling me to tell me all about it.”
“Who are you talking to?” demanded the father of the family she was using as cover. He strong-armed the cart she was hiding behind, sharply wheeling it away from her. “Are you touching my bags?”
“No, no. I wasn’t touching anything. I, uh, twisted my ankle and was just resting for a moment.” She gave him a weak smile, which didn’t seem to satisfy him.
She wanted to demand, Do I look like a terrorist? but she kept her mouth shut. Harrumph. She was wearing a beautifully cut navy-blue suit, a silk blouse and her grandmother’s pearls. Hardly the sort of person who planted bombs in other people’s golf bags.
Oh well. She pretended to limp as she darted behind a convenient pillar, just to allay Mr. Cranky’s fears. It provided a better angle to spy on Tyler, anyway. From that vantage point, she saw him take his ticket from the agent at the counter and disappear down Concourse C.
“For once in my life,” she said with determination, “I’m not going to be the one on the other end of the phone. I’m going to be the one in the middle of the adventure.”
Now all she had to do was buy a ticket on his flight to San Francisco—two o’clock, the waitress had said—and keep shadowing him wherever he went when he got there. She would scope out whatever it was he was involved with, and she would step in to save him when the proper time arose.
Good plan, she told herself. It was just the sort of thing Trick McCall would do. Sukie, on the other hand, would be seducing him off to Paris for croissants in bed. But Emily preferred to stick with Trick on this one.
So she hit an ATM for as much cash as she could carry, tried not to look like a drug dealer when she paid for her ticket in cash, and then made a beeline for the gate.
Tyler was already there, moodily staring into space, and he didn’t seem to notice as she skirted around behind him and buried her nose in her Trick McCall book. Either she was very good at this surveillance stuff, or he was very bad at picking up on it.
Actually, things were working out so well she wondered if she should pinch herself. But surely this was kismet, destiny, fate, with her plans neatly falling into place to show her that this adventure was meant to be.
When the gate attendant called his row, Tyler strolled onto the plane, apparently none the wiser. Emily watched him go, drinking in his reckless, easy grace, the harsh angle of his jaw, the cool green of his eyes, offset beautifully by thick, dark lashes. Yes, she was definitely doing the right thing. She couldn’t just let someone like that pass her by and not do her best to save him.
Her assigned seat was near the front of the plane, so she was one of the last people to get on. She didn’t want to appear obvious, so she didn’t look for Tyler, didn’t allow herself to scan the rows or anything. No, she just settled in and fastened her seat belt. But even though she couldn’t see him, Emily knew he was back there somewhere. He wasn’t going to get away from her now.
And then the plane pulled away from the gate. A small smile curved her lips, and she felt a tingle of anticipation and exhilaration. Too late to turn back, which meant she was actually doing this. She couldn’t believe it! She had never done anything this outrageous in her life, and she was loving every minute.
“This your first flight?” The man next to her, a hearty, blustery type with bloodshot eyes and a boozy aroma, leaned in closer. “Fear of flying, huh, sweetie?”
Emily blinked. Men like this never came on to her. Why in the world would they start now? “Uh, no,” she managed. “Why would you think that?”
“You seem a little nervous,” he said, patting her hand, glomming on, squeezing warmly. “Kinda jittery. White knuckles. Poor baby.”
Eeuw. She snatched her hand away. “I’m not nervous. I’m just anxious to get to San Francisco.” She couldn’t help embroidering the truth, hoping to put him off. “Y’see, I’m a lawyer. Criminal law. I have a really important case. A murder case. My client murdered a guy who sexually harassed her. We’re claiming justifiable homicide.”
“Okay, I get the picture.” Mr. Boozy turned his attention to the stewardess, intent on snagging an early cocktail, and Emily leaned back and shut her eyes.
There were no bumps, no turbulence, nothing. And it was taking forever.
While Mr. Boozy tossed back miniature bottles of every color and type, Emily did her best to be patient. She finished off the Trick McCall book before they were even past Iowa. After that, she took a nap, thumbed through the magazine, filled in the crossword puzzle, gazed out her window. She even pulled the odious Bentley file out of her briefcase and worked on that for a while. But this waiting stuff was driving her bananas.
She was simply gazing at the back of the seat in front of her when the flight attendant held out a napkin and a bag of pretzels. “Would you like something to drink?” the woman asked pleasantly.
Although Emily waved off the stewardess, the guy next to her made up for her and then some. He had about ten empty bottles lined up on his tray, with a tiny Scotch, a tiny bourbon and four or five wines in different colors. He wasn’t just drinking, he was having a one-man tasting party.
With a jaded eye, Emily watched him plow through his liquor supply. At least he was a fairly quiet drunk. Then he turned to ask her if she wanted to try the cognac and knocked the whole uncapped bottle off his tray and into her lap. With cold, potent-smelling liquid seeping into her thigh, Emily realized those tiny bottles held a lot more than she would have thought.
The icky man did his best to blot at her with his napkin, but it didn’t help. So, for two hours, she sat there, stuck in her puddle of brandy, willing the plane to get its tail fin to San Francisco on the double so she could get out of there before she started shoving little bottles down Mr. Boozy’s throat.
Finally, blessedly, they were there, their gate was hooked up, and she gathered her heavy briefcase and her purse and bolted off the airplane as if there were no tomorrow.
A traffic jam behind her clogged the jetway, and she decided she surely had time to nip into the rest room and splash some water on her cognac-soaked skirt. She was in and out in record time—not that it really helped the cognac problem—but her gate had cleared by now, and Tyler was nowhere to be seen.
“What now?” Emily chewed her thumbnail, glancing up and down the concourse for a glimpse of that familiar leather jacket. Where could he have gone?
Hotfooting it in the general direction of ground transportation, she wished she wasn’t wearing pumps or hauling that stupid, cumbersome briefcase with the laptop in it. Was she gasping with exertion? Or starting to hyperventilate?
And where the hell had Tyler disappeared to?
Huffing and puffing, Emily took a decisive turn toward the taxi arrow. Tyler seemed like a cab kind of guy, didn’t he? Rather than a limo or a shuttle, she thought a taxi would definitely be the best bet—
“Taxi, miss?” When she was almost at the curb, a man suddenly appeared out of nowhere and reached for her briefcase.
Emily whirled in his direction, skidding to a stop, bumping into the cab driver, as she saw—oh, my God!—Tyler pop up like a mirage right in front of her.
She’d not only found him, she’d practically fallen on top of him.
The cabbie said, “You share cab, miss, yes?” and wrenched her briefcase out of her hand. He’d already tossed it into the trunk of the taxi, so there wasn’t much she could do but get in. Oh, God. She was supposed to be following the mysterious Tyler, not sharing the back seat of a cab with him!
Tyler waited, staring right at her, holding the door as she scooted inside. No chance of being inconspicuous now. She tried hard to manage her entrance with a modicum of grace, but it was impossible with those stormy green eyes staring a hole in her. She was flushed and breathless and she smelled as if she’d just taken a dip in a distillery vat. What kind of impression was she going to make? Besides idiotic, of course.
“Where we goin’?” the cabbie asked as Tyler folded his long, lean body in after her, stowing his duffel bag on the floor at his feet.
Tyler glanced her way, clearly giving her the first shot.
“I, uh…” She trailed off, tongue-tied. “I’m thinking.”
He shrugged. “Okay, well, I need to go to North Beach. Take Stockton—I’ll tell you where to stop.”
Emily couldn’t believe it, but she actually had the presence of mind to murmur, “What a coincidence. That’s exactly where I’m going.”
As the driver merged with traffic, sailing off into a sunny San Francisco afternoon, a long pause hovered over the back seat. Tyler’s gaze measured her, held her, as she waited for him to say something. Finally he offered, “You don’t look like the North Beach type.”
“Oh, really?” She had no idea what that meant. She’d never even heard of North Beach. Did he expect her to be carrying a towel and suntan lotion? “Well, you never know, do you?” she asked brightly. “Maybe I’ve got my swimsuit in my briefcase.”
Now she saw the spark of something else in his eyes. Humor? “There’s no beach at North Beach,” he told her calmly. “Are you sure you’re going to the right place?”
“Oh, I’m sure. I was just joking. About the swim-suit, I mean.”
Again silence hung between them. He shrugged. “Okay, if you’re sure.”
She wished he would stop staring like that. Miserable, Emily pulled on the hem of her soggy skirt and retreated into the far corner of the seat.
Still he was awfully close. Too close. And so very sexy. Even in repose, he had this hard-edged, smoky attitude that just screamed sex and lust and bad, bad things. It was like sitting two inches from a bonfire. She knew she shouldn’t touch, but she was mesmerized, bewitched by the dancing flames.
You know what happens if you start playing with fire, a panicky internal voice reminded her. You come away with third-degree burns.
Ooh. Bad thing to think about. Very, very bad.
Her mind suddenly filled with images of Tyler and heat and flames. She pictured him glistening with sweat, stripping off his clothes one article at a time as the torrid temperature overpowered them both.
Now she was definitely hyperventilating.
As she fanned her face, the rest of the trip into San Francisco became a blur. She had no idea what was outside her window; all she saw was Tyler.
Stop this, she commanded herself. Do something. Say something.
But what? Okay, so she hadn’t planned to introduce herself quite this quickly. She could roll with the punches, couldn’t she? Surely this was her golden opportunity to cross-examine him, to get him to tell her more about whatever this was she was horning in on. And then she would say, Hmm, sounds like you need my help, and somehow make it all sound natural and reasonable.
Except she hadn’t exactly figured out how to do that yet.
She mulled over various openings, but before she’d so much as asked for his name, the taxi swooped up one hill and down another, and Tyler leaned forward.
“This is it. Pull over here,” he instructed, and the cab slammed to a stop.
“Okay, we got North Beach,” the driver shouted. He jumped out to open the trunk and retrieve Emily’s briefcase as Tyler unwound himself and his duffel bag from the back seat.
Emily got out more slowly, not exactly sure how she was going to maneuver Tyler into showing her where he was going. For her to follow, he had to lead the way. But he was standing there waiting, doing the gentlemanly thing and allowing her to go first.
“No, no, you go ahead,” she said suddenly. “I’ll take care of the cab. My treat. You just go right ahead and get on your way.”
His dark brows lowered. “Why would you want to do that?”
“I—I’m practicing random acts of kindness,” she blurted. Well, that was as good an explanation as any.
He studied her for a moment, but finally accepted the favor, probably deciding it was easier to let the crazy lady have her way than fight with her. Phew. As Emily thrust bills at the cabbie, her quarry ambled across the street and up to a charming little Queen Anne house on the opposite corner. Mostly painted pink with some white trim, the house had a faintly purple conical tower in one corner. The sign out front read “Beau’s B and B.” And Tyler marched right in the front door as if he owned the place.
This was a surprise. Although Emily thought the B and B looked delightful—the only remotely Queen Anne house around—it was not where she would have expected Tyler to land. Everything else on the softly sloping street was strictly Edwardian, mostly three stories, with squared-off angles and bay windows. But whatever it was, at least Beau’s B and B was a legitimate place to stay, and she wouldn’t look incredibly weird filing in behind him.
As soon as she got rid of the cabbie, Emily gathered her purse, her briefcase and her courage, and took off across the street to Beau’s B and B. Her heart pounded as her hand closed around the brass knob on the front door. Get a grip, Emily, she chided herself. You just spent half an hour in a car with him. How much scarier could sharing a bed and breakfast be?
So she opened the door.
The inside of the B and B was even cuter than outside, with a small pine desk tucked inside a cozy vestibule in the front hall. There was a Tiffany-style lamp on a three-legged table opposite, casting a soft, rosy glow into the hall. A dark-haired woman—a very pretty dark-haired woman—stood behind the desk, smiling and laughing as she put Tyler on the register.
Emily took a good look at her, a little in awe of the casually eccentric way the woman was dressed, and how at ease she seemed to be around Tyler. Her hair was short and kind of spiky, as if she’d just washed it, tossed her head, and left it that way. And she was wearing a scarlet silk T-shirt under a crazy quilt vest—an outfit that was just as unique and striking as the rest of her.
This woman was exactly the sort of person Emily had always secretly wanted to be, but had never come close to. How annoying. She hated her already.
Emily dawdled by the door, trying to be inconspicuous. She pretended to be occupied looking at the array of colorful and exotic postcards pinned to the wall, taking in bright pictures of Zanzibar and Pago Pago, but mostly she was eavesdropping on Tyler and the beautiful innkeeper. It only took about a second to pick up that these two were old friends. Sheesh. Jozette at the Rainbow Rest-O-Rant and now the offbeat proprietor of Beau’s B and B. Did he know every unattached woman in the western hemisphere?
“Aw, c’mon, Kate,” Tyler grumbled. “You know I don’t have a reservation. How long have we known each other? Have I ever had a reservation?”
“No,” the brunette returned cheerfully. “But I keep hoping you’ll surprise me.” She cocked her head to one side, fixing him with a mischievous gaze. “Are you going to pay me this time?”
“You can take it out in trade,” he said in a low, husky voice, and Emily just about fainted where she stood. Take it out in trade? What kind of trade was he talking here?
Now she really hated her. Lucky dog, she thought. But the innkeeper, the vivacious Kate, didn’t seem to take the offer seriously. She just laughed at Tyler, shaking a finger in his direction, while a huge yellow tabby leaped up on the desk from out of nowhere, right smack in between the two of them. The cat landed with a clatter, knocking over a ceramic pencil cup and scattering pens and papers every which way.
“Whoa.” But after the momentary surprise, Tyler leaned in and began to scratch behind the cat’s ears. “Hey, big bad Beau, it’s been a long time. You still remember me, pal?”
Beau, after whom the B and B was apparently named, responded with a loud, rusty purr that Emily could hear all the way over by the door. She took that for a yes.
“I guess rascals and rogues have to stick together,” Kate noted dryly. “You and that cat are two of a kind. Beau, get down from there.”
The cat ignored her, whipping her with its tail, giving her a dismissive glance from brilliant green eyes—eyes that were the exact same shade as Tyler’s.
“I’ve got it. Leaves on an apple tree,” Emily said out loud. The apple tree outside her bedroom window when she was a kid. She’d finally placed the color.
Tyler, Kate and even the cat turned at her words. Oops. Emily could feel her face suffuse with rosy heat.
“Sorry,” she mumbled. “Just thinking out loud.”
“About apple trees?” Tyler shook his head. She could see the questions forming on his lips. Who are you, anyway? Why are you following me? And who gave you a day pass from the mental ward?
Oh, yeah. She was making a great impression.
Kate smiled kindly. “I’ll be with you in just a sec,” she told Emily. And she winked, as if to say, I get the apple tree thing.
Oh, dear. Here she was ready to dislike Kate on sight, and the innkeeper was acting like a co-conspirator. Emily focused on the postcard from Pago Pago, trying to sort out her jumbled thoughts.
Meanwhile Kate turned her attention back to Tyler. “Hey, Ty, I’ve changed things since the last time you were here. You were in the Gone With the Wind room last time, right?”
He nodded.
Kate sighed. “I loved that room. But I had to redecorate. A couple of guests set the bed on fire trying to recreate the burning of Atlanta.”
“That’s, uh, too bad,” Tyler choked, disguising a chuckle by concentrating on the cat. He stroked his fur and tried to maneuver the stubborn little animal into a position where he could get picked up. Undaunted, Beau stood his ground, bonked his head into Tyler’s chest and purred even louder.
Emily was enchanted. This was the first time she’d seen him really smile, let alone laugh, plus he was acting all sweet and tender toward the yellow cat. It was a whole different side of him.
“Okay,” Kate went on, chewing the end of a pencil. “Let’s see. I know you like the Pirate and Kismet rooms best, but they’re full. So I guess I’ll put you in the new one.”
“And that is…?” he asked warily.
“You’ll love it. After I decided Gone With The Wind was too dangerous, I switched to my next favorite movie,” she explained. “Turns out it’s perfect for you. The Wild One. Yep. You’ve already got the leather jacket and everything. And you get to sleep under Marlon Brando’s picture. Cool, huh?”
“The Wild One?” Tyler shook his head. “The Pirate and the red one—what is it, Kismet?—are bad enough. I can’t wait to see what you’ve done to this one.”
Emily couldn’t wait, either. She could feel her eyes growing rounder at the mental images The Wild One evoked. She knew that movie. Leather jackets, motorcycles. Bad attitude. She gulped, trying to contain her growing excitement. Wow. It was perfect for Tyler.
But he didn’t seem to notice. He just scooped up his key and his duffel bag and went down the hall. As soon as he left, his best pal Beau went after him, skidding off the desk and showering pens and paper clips to the four winds.
As Emily watched Tyler’s well-shaped, jean-clad derriere disappear up the stairs, her mouth went dry. But his departure didn’t really dampen her enthusiasm. Once again, she thanked the Fates that had landed her in the midst of all this. Pirates and Kismet and The Wild One? This place was great!
She stepped up to the desk, eager to see what room awaited her. The way things had gone so far, maybe this would be perfect, too. Maybe there would be a Mata Hari room with her name on it, she mused. Or Xena, Warrior Princess.
“So, you’re checking in?” Kate inquired.
“Right. If you have a room.” After buttoning her suit jacket so it more completely covered the stain from the cognac spill, Emily hurriedly ran her hands through the basic brown strands of her chin-length bob. She hoped she wasn’t too much of a mess. After all, she had to look respectable enough to get a room.
“One room left,” Kate told her.
Emily smiled. See? Her luck was holding.
“Will you need help with your…? Oh.” Her host glanced over the desk and then back up at Emily. “No luggage?”
“Lost,” Emily replied quickly. “I think my bags got sent to, uh, Pago Pago by mistake.”
“Okay. Well, if you need me to call the airline and track that down for you, you let me know,” Kate offered sympathetically. “Usually lost baggage shows up in a day or two, but it never hurts to call. Just leave the tracking number and I’ll be happy to take care of it.”
“Tracking number. Right.”
Kate leaned forward, sniffing loudly. “What is that smell? Smells like, I don’t know, brandy or scotch or something. It’s really strong, isn’t it?”
Emily stiffened, but Kate didn’t appear to notice, or to pinpoint the source of the overpowering, boozy odor.
“I wonder what Beau got into now. I hope he didn’t knock over the decanter in the parlor.” She frowned. “You wouldn’t believe the things that cat thinks it’s funny to dip his tail in.”
“It’s not the cat.”
Kate paused. “No?”
“No. It’s me.”
“You?”
“A man on the plane spilled one of those tiny bottles of booze—cognac, I think—on me.” Emily gave a delicate whiff of her own. “Oh, dear. It really is potent, isn’t it?”
“Well, it could be worse. I mean, it’ll come out. Don’t you think?”
“I hope so.” Eager to change the subject, Emily pulled out her purse. She reached for a credit card, but put it back on the double. No credit cards as long as she was on the lam—too traceable by well-meaning family members. Her dad and brothers were bad enough, but her mother…sheesh. Once Judge Patience Burr-Chaplin found out her only daughter had skipped town, she was going to have a fit. And she wouldn’t rest until she located Emily.
“The least I can do is make it tough for her,” Emily murmured under her breath. With a faint smile, she added, “Do you need me to prepay? I have cash. I hope that’s okay.”
“Oh, sure. That’s great.” Kate looked up expectantly. “And how long will you be staying?”
Emily paused. How long would she be staying? The first answer that occurred to her was short and succinct.
As long as Tyler.
Chapter 3
BUT SHE DIDN’T SAY THAT. “I’ll be staying through the weekend, I think. Have to be back in the office on Monday.”
“Great.” Kate beamed at her. “You’ll be in the Pollyanna room.”
“The Pollyanna room?” she echoed. Pollyanna? But she was hoping for…“Isn’t there anything else?”
“Sorry,” Kate replied. “Pollyanna is the only room available. But I’m sure you’ll like it. It’s very lacy and feminine—just right for someone like you.”
“Someone like me…right.”
Which was exactly what she was trying to avoid.
“I’m really sorry.” The innkeeper lowered her voice to a conspiratorial tone. “I completely understand. I think Pollyanna is kind of lame, too. But my mom made me add it. She thinks the other rooms are too—oh, I don’t know—slutty or something. Mothers.” She rolled her eyes. “Can’t live with them, and they won’t let you live without them.”
“I hear you.”
Kate edged the register book in front of her and then stooped down under the desk. From down there, she called, “Hang on. I have to get a pen off the floor—that darn Beau!” Straightening, she handed over a felt-tip. “Okay. Now I’ll need you to fill in your name and address.”
The register. The very one Tyler had signed a few minutes ago. With heightened anticipation, Emily pulled the book closer, eager to read whatever he’d written about himself.
But it was just a blank page. Darn it. Emily’s registration was the first one on a new page, and she was going to have to very conspicuously turn the page back if she wanted to read his information.
“Is there something wrong?” Kate inquired.
“Oh, no. Well,” she said, improvising, “this pen is dried out. Do you have a different one?”
As Kate once again ducked under the desk, Emily grabbed her chance, flipping the page back, squinting at the slash of rotten handwriting to make out “Tyler O’Toole, Chicago, IL,” and then several blank lines.
Quickly she put the register back the way it was, just in time for Kate to pop up with a pencil. Emily took it and scribbled down her own name and address.
Okay, so he wasn’t terribly good at filling out forms and he hadn’t given her much to go on. At least she knew his last name now. Tyler O’Toole.
Speaking of last names…she glanced down at her own. Was it wise to use her real name? Or smarter to go with a fake one just in case her mother started looking for her?
While Kate was occupied tidying up the pencil cup, Emily erased her last name and penciled in the first cool name that popped into her head. “Bond,” she wrote. Emily Bond.
After spinning the book around to read the name, Kate smiled. “Nice to meet you, Emily.” Then she turned to pull an old-fashioned key off a hook. “Okay. Pollyanna is the first room on the right at the top of the stairs. There’s a doll on the door—that’s how you’ll know it’s Pollyanna.”
“Pollyanna and baby dolls,” Emily murmured, feeling more disappointed by the minute. It sounded like her room when she was twelve. As the youngest child and the only girl in the Chaplin family, she’d had to endure all kinds of smothering, fussy stuff. “I’ll be sure to look for the doll.”
Handing over the key, Kate began to list a few other B and B procedures, something about when she wanted breakfast, and did she like coffee or tea, and would she want afternoon snacks, and checkout time. But Emily just nodded at appropriate times, not really paying attention. She was too busy watching Tyler slip back down the stairs and head this way. Beau nipped at his heels, but Tyler grabbed the big tabby in the crook of one arm and then deposited him with Kate.
Hanging on to the squirming cat, she interrupted her welcoming spiel to ask him, “On your way out so soon?”
He nodded, edging toward the door.
On his way out? But he couldn’t be yet. Emily needed to follow him, but it was difficult to do that in the middle of registering. How blatant would it be if she ran out now, without even looking at the Pollyanna room, just dropping everything and racing after him? Pretty blatant.
Beau gave a howl and Kate dropped him. After landing with a big thud, the cat immediately attached himself to Emily’s legs, winding around, meowing, giving her a plaintive stare from those infuriating green eyes.
“I—I guess he likes me,” Emily murmured.
So why was he bumping her with his head and nudging her closer to Tyler? Was the cat actually telling her to go for it?
“Now, now,” she said sweetly, trying to disengage herself. But Beau was a stubborn little beast, and he rammed his whole weight into her, pushing her after Tyler.
Tyler’s moody gaze swept the two of them. Was that suspicion she read in the clear green depth of his eyes? Or interest? Just before he cleared the door, his hand already on the brass knob, Tyler stopped. He turned back.
“The airport, the cab…” he said slowly. “Do I know you?”
“Um, no.” Suddenly reckless, taking her opening where she could get it, Emily asked, “But would you like to?”
“Would I like to what?”
He gave her an odd look, but it spoke volumes. It was the same one that said, Who gave you a day pass from the loony bin?
She hated that look.
And then he shook his head, frowned at her, shoved open the door and took off for parts unknown, leaving her holding the key to the Pollyanna room.
Emily closed her eyes and tried not to feel like an absolute doofus. The first time in her life she’d gone for coy and flirtatious, and it had flopped big-time. Let’s not try that again.
“Emily, I’m sorry to have to say this.” Kate bit her lip. Clearly she was trying to be kind. It was written all over her pretty face.
“You don’t have to say any—”
“Yes, I do. I can’t help but notice that you seem sort of, well, smitten with Tyler.”
Smitten? Smitten? But that wasn’t it at all! Tyler was part of an adventure, a caper, an escapade. She hardly wanted to date him or bring him home to meet Mom and Dad—although the expression on their faces would have been priceless when they got a load of Tyler.
Emily shook her head, getting back to the business at hand. She didn’t want anything like that from Tyler. No, she wanted to skate on thin ice with him, to dance on the brink of danger. Smitten had nothing to do with it.
“You seem to have the wrong idea—” she began.
But Kate interrupted. “I’m so sorry, Emily, but I think it’s better you should be warned up front. Forewarned, forearmed, all that, you know? It’s just that Tyler and I, well, we go back a long way.”
Forewarned and forearmed? Tyler and I? Emily backed away from the desk. “Are you trying to say you and Tyler are a couple? I have always been very respectful of—”
“No, no, nothing like that.” Kate waved her hands anxiously. “It’s not that Tyler is taken or anything like that. And certainly not by me. Far from it. Well, we had a couple of…I mean, years ago, we did…never mind.” She gave Emily a wry smile. “Let’s just say I know him pretty well. And I have some experience with this matchmaking business. You know, running the B and B.” She inclined a thumb at the wall of postcards. “Those are some of my success stories.”
“M-matchmaking?” Emily sputtered. “But I don’t need—”
“That’s what everyone thinks,” Kate confided. “But you’d be surprised how many otherwise perfectly sensible people will walk right past the perfect person for them.” She shook the wayward tendrils of her short-cropped hair. “Luckily, I have really good instincts about people, and I am an excellent matchmaker, if I do say so myself.”
Looking at all the postcards, Emily had to agree.
“It’s my experience as a matchmaker that’s telling me this.” There was that kind, half-pitying expression again. “Frankly,” Kate said, “you and Tyler…I just don’t see it. Not a good match.”
“But I’m not interested in being matched up with him,” Emily insisted. What was it with her? Did she have “please find me a date” stenciled on her forehead? Everyone in the world seemed to think she was so pitiful she needed to be fixed up with a guy, any guy. And that was the last thing she wanted.
“I know, I know. Everyone says they’re not interested in getting matched up. And don’t get me wrong,” Kate interjected. “Tyler is a great guy. And you seem very nice. But I don’t think he’s at a place in his life where he’d be looking for someone like you. I mean, I have to be honest with you. Since he and I had our couple of nowheresville dates years ago, the only women I’ve ever seen him with have been hookers and strippers.”
Emily’s jaw dropped. “Hookers and strippers?”
“Oh, no, not to date or anything,” Kate assured her. “It was business. You know, in his line of work, it comes up.”
And what line of work would that be?
But Kate was continuing with her friendly warning. “Really, trust me. He’s not your type.” She perked up. “On the other hand, I do have a sweet, nice, stable guy staying in the Pirate room. A nice, stable divorce lawyer. I think he’d be perfect for you—”
“A lawyer? No. No lawyers. Ever.”
Even if she had been interested in dating, which she wasn’t, that bit of info would’ve been enough to put her off. Yech. Her brain manufactured an image of the pompous, self-important face of Kip Enfield, and she shuddered. If she never saw another lawyer, it would be too soon.
“No lawyers? How funny,” Kate mused. “Tyler always says the same thing.”
But Emily was rewinding the tape of their conversation, back to the part about the hookers and strippers. Trying not to sound too nosy, she ventured, “Okay, so you said that women from the wrong side of the tracks come up in Tyler’s line of work. Why would that be, exactly?”
Kate blinked.
“I mean,” Emily tried again, “what line of work is it that these bad girls come up in?”
“Sorry.” Kate pressed her lips together. “I do apologize, Emily, since I brought it up, but I feel very strongly about maintaining my guests’ privacy.” She clapped the register shut with a quick thump. “I’m sure you understand.” Kate turned and ducked behind the desk, stowing the registration book securely in a drawer. “Where did I leave that…? Oh, here it is.” She held up an envelope. “Better go pay the bills. Right now.”
And Kate beat a hasty path down the hall to the parlor door. She turned around long enough to call out, “Remember, the Pollyanna room is the first right at the top of the stairs.”
“Got it.” Oh, she had it all right. She understood perfectly. Kate was not going to tell her anything useful about Tyler at all. Blast it, anyway.
Lugging her briefcase, which seemed to be getting heavier by the minute, Emily decided that with Tyler already off the premises, there was nothing to do but get upstairs and see what this Pollyanna room was all about.
“I’ll relax and then I’ll formulate a plan,” she said out loud, taking the stairs as rapidly as she could manage. When she almost tripped on the top step, she glanced at her sensible pumps. “The first thing I’m going to do is get out of these shoes. And the second…” She crinkled her nose. “The second is take off my skirt.”
She felt better already, having a plan.
“Okay, find the door with the dolly.” That was easy enough. The golden-haired doll in Edwardian clothing was fastened to the door with a pale pink ribbon around her waist, and she held out her arms in welcome. A dead giveaway that this was the Pollyanna room.
But Emily couldn’t resist. She passed it by, long enough to tiptoe down the hall to locate The Wild One. A small silver trophy was the marker for this door, for reasons she didn’t quite understand.
Fingering it gently, Emily wished again that she could see inside that room. “The Wild One,” she breathed. “That is majorly cool.”
Oh well. As she traipsed back to her own door, she decided that the good news was that The Wild One was right next to her room. It shouldn’t be tough at all to keep an eye on Tyler—if he ever came back.
Safely inside the Pollyanna room, Emily kicked off her shoes and took a look around. As promised, it was pretty. There was a canopy bed, dripping in white lace and ruffles, with a pastel-colored movie poster of Hayley Mills as Pollyanna hanging next to it. Under the poster sat a white wicker rocking chair, and in the rocker, someone had placed a fluffy teddy bear wearing what looked like a vintage christening gown.
Tall bookshelves took up most of the outside wall; they overflowed with exquisitely costumed dolls in velvet frocks and feathered hats. There was even a small wicker tea table with child-size chairs pulled up around it, and an antique armoire pushed up against the wall Pollyanna shared with The Wild One. Delicate bunches of violets had been painted on the doors of the armoire, making it an even more lovely piece.
“Oh, pooh.” Emily sat down on the bed, curling her hand around the carved wood bedpost. She’d only been here five minutes and she’d already fallen under the spell of the Pollyanna room. “I actually like it here.”
Somehow, Beau the cat had sneaked into the room with her, and she bent to pet his head absently. Apparently deciding that was an invitation, Beau hurled himself into her lap.
“Whoa.” He was one heavy cat. She tried to be friendly, but he began to sniff and paw at her cognac-soaked skirt, and Emily got the hint. “I was going to change it,” she told him. “Everyone is a critic.”
So she slipped off her jacket and skirt, even her panty hose, tossing them onto the bed. Much better. Beau immediately curled up on the pile of discarded clothing and began to lick his paw.
“I’m glad you’re happy, Mr. Kitty. But what do I wear now?”
While hanging out in her silk blouse and underwear was comfy for right now, it had its disadvantages in the long run—like the fact that she couldn’t leave the room.
“Aha!” Emily announced, stooping and dragging her laptop out of her briefcase. After carefully moving the tiny tea set, she opened her computer on the small wicker table, managing to squeeze herself into one of the junior-size chairs. “Let’s do a little E-commerce,” she muttered, booting it up and searching for the nearest decent clothing store. It took a few minutes, but she hit pay dirt eventually. “Ooh, this one’s good. Based in San Francisco, and they even deliver.”
She clicked on an image of a plain white T-shirt, and then a pair of khaki pants. “And let’s see. Maybe a pair of sneakers and some socks.”
All it took was quickly verifying the inn’s address, keying in her credit card info, and then sitting back and waiting for her new clothes to arrive.
“I love technology,” she said brightly. She felt so smart, so hip, so now, coping with the various challenges of her impromptu adventure.
But what now? She had to do something while she waited. Of course, she was keeping an ear peeled for any activity next door in The Wild One, but so far, nothing. She’d already read her book, and she had no intention of working on that stupid Bentley file. Not here. Not now.
But the Bentley file did remind her that she’d sneaked away from work in the middle of the morning, and left not so much as a note to explain her hasty departure. A quick check of her watch told her that in Chicago time, her parents would have expected her home for dinner about an hour ago. They probably would assume she had a date and refrain from calling out the National Guard for at least a few more hours, but she had to do something.
“E-mail.” It was the only solution. So she sat there at her laptop, composing a good cover story for her nosy, overprotective family. “Hmm…how about Sukie Sommersby?”
A few cheerful E-mails detailing a frantic call from Sukie were a cinch to come up with. “Sukie had another emergency,” she typed, “so I’m off to Miami for the weekend. Don’t worry—everything is fine. You know Sukie! See you on Monday.”
She was just sending the last note when Beau bolted from his perch on the bed and went racing to the armoire. He began to howl—not just meow but howl—and to purposefully scratch his nasty little claws against the beautiful wood.
Emily hustled over to try to pry his paws off the cabinet. “What is it you want, Beau? You can’t want to go inside the armoire, can you?”
He spun around suddenly, bounding to the bed and leaping on top of her clothes, and then just as suddenly dashing back to the armoire, where he started the caterwauling and scratching act again. He repeated this mad dash two or three times.
Emily was struck with a very odd thought. “Beau,” she said out loud, “this can’t really be your way of telling me to hang up my clothes, can it?”
It was the best theory she could come up with. So she dutifully shook out her jacket and hung it, not quite shutting the armoire doors as she toted her skirt into the adjacent bathroom to rinse off as much cognac as she could. She was still carrying the dripping skirt when she noticed Beau seemed to have disappeared.
“Where did he get off to?” she mused. But there was no Beau to be seen. Shrugging, she hung the skirt in the bathroom, and then searched under the bed and behind the rocker. Nope. “Okay, so he must be stuck in the armoire.”
But when she opened the doors this time, she noticed a wide crack all the way around the back wall. And she could see daylight through there.
What was this? A magic armoire with a secret passage at the back? Emily’s heart beat faster.
“Beau?” she called. “Did you go through the crack?”
Peering closer, she couldn’t help but give the partition a little push, and then a little look.
And before she knew it, she’d shoved it open wide, climbed through the back of her armoire, and scrambled out the front of the one next door. There she was, standing in the middle of The Wild One in her underwear!
“This room is so cool,” she whispered, her eyes wide. Cool wasn’t the half of it. The bed frame was shiny chrome, while the spread was black leather, stretched taut against the frame. The footboard looked like the front grill of a motorcycle, and it actually had handlebars that twisted back around the corners. “Yowza.”
It made her want to take a ride on that bed and see where she ended up.
“Yowza,” she said again, although that was not a word she could ever remember uttering before in her entire life. She whirled around in the room, drinking it in. Decorated completely in black-and-white, it had a big poster of Marlon Brando in his motorcycle gang attire from the movie, a black-leather director’s chair near the front window, a dresser that looked more like the counter at a fifties diner, and a big silver trophy sitting on its own special shelf. Beau was curled into a half circle in the director’s chair, and he lifted his head long enough to fix her with those infuriating, all-knowing green eyes.
Emily swallowed, fingering the handlebars. This was like all her fantasies come true. It was adventure and excitement boiled down and turned into a bedroom. And she absolutely loved it.
“Okay, get a grip,” she ordered herself. “You wanted to know more about Tyler, didn’t you? This is your chance to snoop around, handed to you on a silver platter—by a yellow cat.”
She shook her head. Whether Beau had led her here or not, the reality was, she was inside Tyler’s room, and she might as well make the most of it. She chewed her lip, glancing around.
“The duffel bag,” she declared. It was tucked neatly under the leather chair. “Look in the duffel bag.”
But she barely had her hand on the zipper when she heard the sound of the side window scraping open behind her. She spun around in time to see a huge, bulky man vaulting in over the windowsill. Sensing danger, Beau leaped over her head and skidded under the bed.
Suddenly her little adventure had gotten scary. Very scary.
Oh, God, what now? The intruder was even bigger and uglier than that Slab person she’d seen at the coffee shop. He had muscles and bulges everywhere, including his neck, and he looked mean enough to pop a blood vessel just for fun. He also had a dull, vacant squint to his eyes—in her experience, the mark of the terminally stupid.
Not good. Not good at all. Emily could feel sweat drizzling down the neck of her blouse as she frantically wondered if she could scream and if anyone would hear her and how she would explain what she was doing here. She edged along the wall, hoping to make a break for it. But the thug advanced, blocking her path to either the open armoire or the door, and there was nowhere to go.
“Hey, you,” he bellowed, pointing a meaty finger at her. “Don’t move.”
“I’m not moving,” Emily returned quickly. “Not even a toe.”
“Yeah, well, you move a toe and I break it.” His thick lips twisted into a menacing grin. “That’s what I do, you know, like, what I get paid for. Breaking stuff. So don’t tempt me, huh?”
“Not tempting. Not doing anything.” She held herself so still she could hear a rushing sound in her ears. She licked dry lips. “You know, I think you have the wrong room. Could I help you find the right one, maybe?”
He narrowed his piggy little eyes, giving her the once-over. “I ain’t got the wrong room. I know O’Toole is here. I wanna know what he’s doing in Frisco. Is he helping Slab? Or looking for him, huh?”
“O-O’Toole? I actually don’t know what he’s doing in town.”
“You look like a smart girl to me,” the big bruiser growled.
Yeah, well, you don’t look very smart to me. But she kept it to herself.
“So don’t be a dumb bunny, huh?” He marched his massive bulk nearer, where that fat finger could poke her right in the collarbone. “I’m an old friend of Slab. Associate, you might say.” He pronounced the word ass-o-cee-ate.” “So now I need to know where Slab is. You know, for ol’ times. And where the stash is. And you’re going to tell me, huh, cutie? Now.”
“S-Slab? S-stash?” she stuttered. “I wish I could help, really I do. But unfortunately for both of us, I have no idea. I’m really very sorry, so incredibly sorry.”
She had only the vaguest notion of what she was chattering on about as she eyed his trousers, trying to figure out if she could get her knee anywhere near the big gorilla’s, um, tender parts. Not likely. Plus he would probably break her kneecap for even thinking about it.
“Will you please shut your trap?” he roared. “I am loosing my patience with you.”
“I think you mean ‘losing,”’ she said helpfully. “Not ‘loosing’—losing.”
His face contorted with rage as she realized it was probably not the best strategy at this juncture to point out his grammatical problems.
When, thank God, the door crashed open, Emily practically shouted with relief. She might be in her underwear, and she might be in his room, but she was awfully glad to see him.
Tyler.
HE BARELY HAD A CHANCE to register that some oversize lunk was manhandling a half-dressed woman. Was it that goofy little brunette from the cab? Before Tyler knew what hit him, she broke away, catapulted herself into him, and knocked him backward onto the leather bed.
He tried to catch her. Fat chance. “Oof” was all he could get out as he toppled back onto the bed, taking her with him. He was underneath, she was on top, and they each made a bad move and then another in a vain attempt to get off the damn slippery leather bedspread.
After about a second of wrestling around, it became impossible to tell whose limbs were whose. Her legs and arms seemed to be all tangled up with his body in ways that were really not a great idea for strangers.
“Your elbow is in my ribs,” he tried. “And will you get your hand off my—?”
Her hand flew off his crotch and settled on his hip as she cried, “My hand? Do you realize where your hands are?”
Yes, he did. He was about to break into a cold sweat over it. Why wasn’t she wearing any clothes? It wasn’t his fault if one of his hands had landed on the back of her thigh, just under the silky curve of her skimpy panties, and the other one was lodged somewhere under her shirt, slipping over her slick, naked flesh, unable to get a decent hold.
“If you would just…oh, forget it!” She attempted to sit up, winding a bare leg around his abdomen, somehow managing to brush him in any number of intimate places. Without thinking, he rolled the other way, but the tail of her blouse got caught under his arm. When he rolled, the fragile fabric pulled, popping buttons every which way.
Tyler stopped dead. He gulped, looking straight down into a whole lot of pale, creamy skin. The fact that she was wearing a wispy scrap of a bra only made her exposed curves look that much more tantalizing.
Across the room, the window frame screeched and splintered as the burglar barreled out in a hurry, not bothering to be neat about it. Funny, but Tyler had almost forgotten about him.
Meanwhile, he couldn’t take his eyes or his hands off all that skin. But he had to get himself out of this before it got any worse—if that was possible.
Savagely dragging his lower body out from under her, Tyler found his head pointing toward the open doors of the armoire. He could see all the way into the Pollyanna room through the gaping hole in the back.
“What?” He stared down at her. “You broke into my room through the armoire, dressed like that? Are you stalking me or something?”
“Ha!” she retorted. She scrambled to a sitting position, vainly attempting to hold the sides of her blouse together. “Of all the nerve! You may be gorgeous, in a menacing and disreputable sort of way—which is not at all my type, for your information—but my motives toward you are completely honorable and virtuous and have to do with helping out a fellow human being who is clearly in trouble with a capital T. This has nothing to do with some insane stalker thing.”
He had no clue what she was babbling about. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”
But she ignored his questions. “I’m the one who deserves some answers. I have just been threatened by a criminal, and I think you owe me an explanation. Who was he? And what does he want with you? He said something about you and Slab and a stash and how he breaks toes for a living!”
“Toes?” he echoed, mystified. “Legs, maybe. But who breaks toes for a living?”
“Don’t change the subject.” As she leaned in closer, her voice dropped to a softer, more intimate tone. “You’re in trouble, aren’t you? But I can help. You can trust me. I’m a lawyer.”
He laughed out loud at that one.
“Why are you laughing? Okay, so I don’t look much like a lawyer at the moment.” She spared a rueful glance for her tattered blouse and bare legs. “But I am. I swear it!”
Tyler laughed even harder.
Apparently trying to make him stop guffawing at her, she bent nearer, grabbing his shoulders in her small hands. “Listen to me,” she said, but her voice dropped into a huskier, less self-assured range as a tangible, shocking kind of electricity flowed between them. One of her hands slid to his jaw. “I was trying to…”
Her hazel eyes glowed with something that had very little to do with honor or virtue, and her gaze seemed to have caught and stuck on his mouth. He knew why. He suddenly had the crazy notion that all he had to do was lift his head about an inch, and he would find her sweet, soft lips melting into his kiss.
Why not? She was half-naked and she was in his bed.
His mouth grazed hers, and he could already feel her hunger, her eagerness.
He reached for her.
Chapter 4
“WHAT’S GOING ON?” a loud, frightened voice from the doorway demanded. “It sounded like there was a train wreck up here!””
It was Kate. She stood there like the wrath of God, wielding a shaky hammer as if she planned to use it on someone’s head. And she was not alone.
Verna, the inn’s normally low-key cook, was backing her up with a cast-iron fry pan, while a third person—a stunned-looking kid hauling a stack of packages—lurked behind the two women, angling for a better view.
The cavalry had arrived.
Tyler sighed, shoving his bed buddy behind him for protection. No half-naked hot kisses just yet.
“Emily?” Kate peered into the room. “Is that you?”
She didn’t answer, but her expression gave a clear message. Caught.
Well, at least now he knew her name. Emily, huh? Yeah, that fit. Pretty, sweet, a touch old-fashioned. All the things that drove him nuts.
“Well.” Dangling her hammer, Kate seemed lost for words. “Emily, you’re a faster worker than I thought,” she said finally.
Emily attempted to wiggle out from behind Tyler. “It’s not what you think,” she tried. “I was just—”
But Tyler clapped a hand over her mouth, not ready to let her spill all the details about the thug and the break-in just yet. No need to scare Kate. And no need to get them both kicked out of the B and B.
“Come on, Kate, give us a break,” he said, trying to put on his most charming voice. “We were just having a little fun. It’s your fault—you’re the one who made this place so romantic. Kismet, pirates, wild ones—we lost our heads.”
Glowering at him, Verna slapped her skillet against her hand. He’d never thought Verna was a particularly intimidating woman. Okay, so she always wore black and looked like a beatnik, but she was harmless. Now, however, she seemed a lot fiercer.
“What about the window?” Verna asked grimly.
“The window?”
“How did it get that way?”
Under his hand, Emily struggled to answer, but Tyler kept a firm grip. “We steamed things up a little. You know.” And then, God help him, he winked at Verna like some goofball Romeo on the prowl. “Sorry. I guess I got carried away when I opened the window to let in some air.”
“I’ll say,” Verna bit off under her breath.
Kate’s brows drew together in consternation. “Tyler, this is so unlike you.”
“Yeah,” he allowed. “Sorry.”
“Are you going to fix the window?” Verna prompted.
“Oh, don’t worry about it. I can fix the window later,” Kate cut in. “It’s just the latch. Tyler, let me know when you go out for dinner, and I’ll take care of it then. Right now, we’ll just leave you to your, uh, romp. Won’t we, Verna?”
She backed off, shooing Verna in front of her, but the boy with the boxes got caught in the shuffle.
“Excuse me,” he tried to say, bobbing away from Verna’s frying pan. “I’m looking for Emily Ch—”
“That’s me!” Ducking out from under Tyler’s grasp, Emily asked, “Are you from the Gap? Are those my clothes?”
Tyler was beginning to think his baffled and confused state of mind was going to be permanent. Emily had delivery boys from the Gap running over with packages of clothing? Huh?
“I have to get my purse,” she told the wide-eyed kid. “Go next door. The room with the doll on the door. I’ll meet you.”
And before Tyler could stop her, she’d scrambled off the bed and through the armoire to find a tip for the delivery boy.
With a particularly nasty oath, Tyler let himself fall backward onto the black leather bedspread. He stared at the ceiling. What in the hell had just happened here? His room had been broken into by a crazy stalker with wide hazel eyes and the cutest, softest mouth he’d ever seen, and then again by a moronic hood who was probably going to come back in five minutes and try again. And he’d let both of them escape unscathed.
Rousing himself, Tyler slid the window back down and flipped the lock. It was wobbly, but it should do until Kate could do a real repair job. Then he crossed to the armoire.
Emily was safely on her side, in that girly paradise called the Pollyanna room. As he watched, she handed the delivery boy a few bills and backed up with her boxes. But how long would she be content to stay put?
With a grim smile, he pulled the panel closed from her side, snapped his own side shut, too, and slid the bolt to keep it that way. For good measure, he grabbed the heavy silver trophy off the shelf and propped it against the secret door.
“Tyler!” she shouted, banging against the back of the armoire from her side. “I still need to talk to you. I can help! Please let me help.”
“Go away, Emily,” he returned calmly.
“Let me in. Please?”
“No.”
Whistling loudly to block out her pleas, he strode out of The Wild One and locked the door securely behind him. He had business to attend to, and he had no time for pretty little distractions, no matter how sweetly her bottom curved or what delights she had spilling out of her unbuttoned blouse.
“A lawyer,” he said derisively. “Yeah, that’s just what I need.”
As far as he was concerned, there would be no more visits from Miss Emily tonight.
THERE WAS NO WAY she was standing still for this. Who did he think he was, anyway?
First he’d laughed at her, then he’d almost kissed her, and now he’d locked the door on her! He simply refused to listen even though what she had to say was of vital importance to his own well-being. What a jerk!
“Oh, God. He almost kissed me,” she whispered, slumping onto the edge of the bed, remembering every second of that intimate encounter. She lifted a weak hand to her lips. “And I almost kissed him back.”
She didn’t even want to think about what might have happened next. But it was too late. Her imagination was running away with her. She would have wrapped her arms around him, he would have pulled her underneath him, and they would have played all kinds of naughty Wild One games.
It was true. She would’ve done anything he wanted at that moment, on that bed, with him. She could protest to everyone who would listen that she wasn’t interested in him that way, that she didn’t want to seduce him or sleep with him, but one roll around a leather bed, and she could think of nothing else.
“I want his hands on me,” she whimpered. “I want my hands on him. I want to peel off every article of his clothing and lick him from head to toe.”
This was pathetic. Emily Chaplin, daughter of the senior partner and the esteemed judge, did not think about licking handsome strangers, let alone say it out loud.
She gulped. Until now.
Okay, well, that was neither here nor there. Didn’t happen. Not going to happen. She repeated both those sentences a few more times. Didn’t happen. Not going to happen.
He was The Wild One and she was Pollyanna and never the twain would meet.
She felt better now that she had identified this weakness in herself—identified and dealt with it. So she had a small problem. Did that mean she had to abandon her whole quest, her once-in-a-lifetime, footloose-and-fancy-free escapade?
“Absolutely not!” she told herself. “I’m here and I’m in this thing, and I’m going to stay until I solve the puzzle and save Tyler’s adorable butt.”
It probably would have been better to leave the “adorable” out of that equation, but she felt sure it was just a tiny oversight. The important thing was that she was back on the case. She’d heard his door slam and his footsteps bang down the hall a few minutes ago, so she could logically assume that he had once more taken off into parts unknown in North Beach. And she needed to get a move on if she wanted to catch up.
Quickly pulling on her new T-shirt, khaki pants and sneakers, Emily yanked her arms into her suit jacket on the way down the stairs. She certainly hoped she could get out of there before she ran into Kate or the cook again. How embarrassing to be caught in bed with Tyler five minutes after she’d assured Kate she wasn’t interested in him.
But luck seemed to be with her this time. She didn’t see another soul. After snatching a map of the area out of a rack near the front desk, she was ready to go.
North Beach, straight ahead.
Thank God. Outside, with a silky San Francisco breeze wafting through her hair and cooling her fevered brow, her head felt much clearer, much better able to cope with the overpowering Tyler O’Toole.
Surely all that sex and sin malarkey was just a momentary reaction to The Wild One room and its leather and chrome delights. Now that she was out in the world, she wasn’t susceptible to him at all. Right?
It was dusk as she followed her map down Columbus Avenue, and that gave a romantic glow to the parade of cafés and bistros, delis and pastry shops. She didn’t want to look like a tourist, but she couldn’t help staring at the hustle and bustle of customers of all colors and shapes and sizes. Her senses were on overload as her ears filled with the sounds of opera on one corner and jazz on the next, and her nose inhaled the wonderful odors of fresh-ground coffee, garlic, cheeses, fresh tomato, and a whole lot of other things she couldn’t identify.
Her stomach growled loudly enough for her to hear it over the recorded aria drifting from a nearby Italian restaurant. Suddenly she remembered she hadn’t eaten since that banana split at the coffee shop so many hours ago. It felt like months.
As she gaped through the window at the mouthwatering wares inside a deli, a man carrying a huge salami almost knocked her down. When she backed up to avoid the salami, a woman lumbering along the sidewalk with a fully dressed mannequin—dressed like a pirate?—got her from behind. Stumbling away from the mannequin, Emily tripped over two men at a sidewalk table who were smoking cigars, drinking cappuccino and arguing at the top of their lungs.
Bohemian, eccentric and colorful, North Beach was great, even if there was no hint of a beach. After the quiet B and B, this extravaganza of sounds and smells was a bit overwhelming, but it was also the perfect setting for an offbeat adventure.
Starving, her stomach rumbling, she managed to navigate a crowded coffee bar and nab a cup of latte and some chocolate biscotti. The latte was better than anything she’d ever tasted in her life. Look what a little hunger could do for you!
As she kept an eye out for any sign of Tyler, sipping her latte, she stumbled over a lingerie store where she picked up a few pretty items, and wandered past everything from bookstores to massage parlors. She stared openmouthed at some of the boutique windows, where they had the kinkiest clothes imaginable on display. A bikini made out of plastic Easter grass? Or was that Astro Turf?
“Hey, you! You interested in some bargains?” A woman at a makeshift stand parked in the alley motioned to her, drawing Emily away from the Easter grass. “I’m closing up for the night. I got some great stuff here, and I’m slashing prices so I don’t have to drag it home.”
Discounted merchandise in the alley? Emily glanced one way and then the other, looking for the catch. This sounded like a real swindle, like someone selling stolen watches out from under his overcoat, or hot VCRs on the back of a truck. And the saleswoman had so many piercings in her head she probably whistled like a teakettle every time she drank a hot beverage.
But still…the colorful piles of clothing and jewelry did look interesting, and too unique to be stolen.
“Did you make these?” Emily asked, holding up a sequined red jacket in one hand and a pair of lavishly embroidered bell-bottoms in the other.
“It’s vintage,” the Amazing Pierced Lady replied. “I pick up all kinds of ratty things at thrift shops and then add all the good stuff, recut them, you know, spruce them up, make them cool.”
Ratty things from thrift shops, repackaged and sold in an alley? Her mother would kill her if she ever found out she’d bought secondhand clothes. But come on! These things were great. The workmanship was first-rate, and all the handiwork was beautiful.
“I’m going for it,” she said to the saleswoman. “When am I ever going to see anything like this again?” She mulled over a tie-dyed pile—did she want the halter or the crop top?
“I’d go with the halter,” her fashion advisor offered. “The cropped stuff just doesn’t make it without a pierced navel.”
Emily was willing to concede that point. She reached for the tie-dyed halter top and an embroidered denim miniskirt, holding them up to check the size. They looked like they would fit perfectly. “How much?”
But the saleswoman had more sales in mind. “Did you see these?” she inquired, coming up with a box of shoes that had been set off to one side. “These are my bestsellers. If you take the halter and the skirt, I’ll throw in the shoes and take fifty dollars for the whole bunch.”
Ooh, the shoes were to die for. Ms. Pierced had apparently taken some clunky wooden platform sandals from the seventies, and then carved and painted monkeys and palm trees into the wood. One of a kind was an understatement. Emily had to have those sandals. Without further ado, she located her size and went for her wallet. But as she peeled off a fifty-dollar bill and handed it over, she happened to glance in the other direction.
And there, on the other side of the street, Emily caught sight of a very large man, shaped something like a chunk of concrete. He was tooling down the sidewalk, headed somewhere in a big hurry.
“Oh, my God,” she said under her breath. “That’s Slab!”
As Ms. Pierced dutifully stuffed the clothes and shoes into the bag with the lingerie, Emily grabbed her purchases and rushed out of the alley, not wasting a moment. Even though it was growing darker, the street was brightly lit, plus Slab was a very easy person to tail—he was so huge he could hardly just fade into the crowd.
Still, he had long strides, and she was huffing a little by the time he turned into a crumbling, garishly painted building with a flashing neon sign. It was something called The Flesh Pit. Charming.
But Emily was game. Calming herself, she squared her shoulders and followed him right in the open door, undaunted. Or at least she pretended to be undaunted. The ground floor appeared to be a tattoo parlor, with various tough-looking people loitering around and lots of bizarre designs on display on the walls. In the back, there was a staircase with a big arrow pointing to the second floor. Above the arrow, the words “Live Entertainment” flashed on and off in red lights.
Slab was disappearing up those steps, his massive frame blocking out all but “ment.” Since raucous music, jeers and catcalling drifted down from upstairs, Emily could only guess that whatever was going on up there was even worse than down here.
Okay, so she was scared. It wasn’t her fault if she stood out like a sore thumb in this tattooed, pierced and generally tough crowd. No wonder so many people were staring at her. She had to face it—she was dressed more like Suzy Suburbs than someone who should be scanning the tattoo chart downstairs at The Flesh Pit.
Gathering her courage, Emily traipsed nonchalantly over to the staircase, fully intending to follow Slab right into the bowels of hell—or whatever it was up there—if that was what it took. After all, Tyler was looking for Slab. She had found Slab. No way she was going to let him go. Not when producing him would certainly show Tyler that she meant business and deserved to be allowed to help him on this caper.
The music and noise above her intensified with every step. She got as far as the upstairs landing, where a couple of brawny bouncers stepped into her path.
“Where ya goin’?” one of them demanded, crossing his beefy arms over his chest.
“In there?” she asked hopefully, pointing to the smoky, dimly lit room behind him. She could barely make out a scantily clad woman gyrating around a pole on a raised area with footlights, while clusters of men yelled and hooted from small cocktail tables. It looked pretty vile from here. She had a feeling it would be even nastier close up.
Was that Slab’s silhouette over by the stage? The shoulders were vaguely shaped like a refrigerator. Who else could it be?
“I don’t think you need to go in there,” the bouncer told her, giving her a cynical once-over. “You don’t look like our kind of customer.”
“I can pay the cover charge.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet. What are you, writing a book?” he asked with a sneer. “Or maybe looking to save the strippers, drag ’em off to some halfway house? We’ve seen your kind before.” He tapped a square, poorly lettered sign attached to the stand behind him. It said We Reserve The Right To Exclude You If We Don’t Like How You Look. “Consider yourself excluded, doll.” He shook his head. “Don’t make me get tough with you.”
“Hmm.” Emily frowned at the stage. She wouldn’t have thought the things that woman was doing to that pole were humanly possible. “She’s certainly…talented, isn’t she?”
“Yeah.” Big Bruiser actually cracked a smile. “That’s Shanda. She’s our headliner. She knows what to do.”
Emily’s ears perked up. She’d heard that name before. Coffee shop. Slab. His voice echoed inside her ears. Sweet Shanda. Best time I ever had… “You did say Shanda, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, sure. She’s a major star in the strip game. Shanda Leer. You heard of her?”
“Shanda Leer?” As in chandelier. Good heavens. But this Shanda Leer had to be the mysterious girlfriend Slab had left Chicago to see. How many Shandas could there be running around North Beach?
Emily felt the thrill of discovery. She’d not only found Slab, but Shanda, too! Putting her miles ahead of Tyler. Now he would have to admit that he needed her help. Just wait until she got back to the B and B and made him beg her to tell him what she’d discovered.
As she contemplated just how she would hold Tyler’s feet to the fire, there was a brassy, musical flourish of sorts inside The Flesh Pit, and Shanda slithered offstage after an enthusiastic hand from the rabble. Slab’s large shadow rose from its place near the stage and skirted the tables, moving toward a back exit.
Emily had to get in there, too. She made her move, but the bouncer stopped her before she’d gone two steps.
“I’m sorry, doll, but you’ll have to step aside,” he told her. “We got real customers coming up.” He inclined a fat thumb down the stairs, and Emily absently glanced that way as she plotted her next move.
Uh-oh, speak of the devil. Tyler was just planting his foot on the first step, a really cranky look on his fabulous face. Even if she had wanted to see him now, which she didn’t, she also didn’t want to face the indignity of being turned away at the door while he marched right in, smirking at her.
So she relied on the first rule of female avoidance tactics: the ladies’ room.
“Excuse me,” she asked politely, leaning in over the bouncer’s podium, “but do you have a rest room I could use?”
“Yeah. Over there. Behind the stairs. Second door on your left.”
Emily beat a quick path down the hall he’d indicated, but it wasn’t pretty. There was one bare bulb screwed into the ceiling, and only a trail of grimy linoleum to lead the way. She pushed open the swinging door marked Girls and barged right in. Empty. It probably didn’t get a whole lot of use except by the strippers themselves.
So she frowned into the mirror, trying to give herself enough time to think up a way into the main room of the strip joint. Since there was a back exit, perhaps there was also a back entrance, like a stage door. Or what if she changed into the halter and miniskirt she’d just bought on the street? Would her looks be more acceptable to the bouncer?
While she pondered, she realized she really did look like Sweet Polly Purebred in her plain white shirt and pearls under the navy jacket. Or maybe it was the hair.
“I should’ve changed it years ago,” she said darkly, fingering the obscenely boring medium brown strands of her chin-length bob. Sure, her hair was shiny and neat, but not very va-va-va-voom. She fussed with her bangs and tucked the sides behind her ears. “Maybe some barrettes or clips or something.”
As she fluffed and fussed with her hair, she found herself glancing absently at the air duct over the mirror. How very strange. She could swear there were voices coming through the filthy grate.
Was that Slab’s distinctive high-pitched whine she heard? She couldn’t be sure, but it certainly sounded like him.
Emily dropped her bag of clothes and her purse and boosted herself up onto the sink, teetering there, grabbing the top of the first stall for balance, as she leaned in closer to the vent to hear better.
Definitely Slab, she realized with a certain triumph. His voice was unmistakable. The words were muddled, but he was pleading with somebody about something, and denying all over the place, that much was clear.
A woman’s voice cut in, telling him to “cram it.” Shanda? No way to tell. She didn’t sound too sweet, that was for sure.
And then another, lower, more irritated voice joined in the conversation. “Tyler,” she whispered. After eavesdropping so shamelessly at the Rainbow Rest-O-Rant, Emily recognized his inflection immediately.
It was gross to press her ear and her clean hair into the dirty duct, but she had to hear more.
She caught Tyler’s acerbic tones, something about jumping bail and Fat Mike, and then demanding a list of who exactly knew Slab was back in San Francisco and who else had claims to the money.
“Wow,” she murmured. This was simply riveting.
Tyler’s voice grew louder and more intense. “Somebody looking for you busted into my room at my friend’s place,” he said angrily, “and tried to rough up an innocent bystander.”
Emily knew who that referred to. Her. She winced, not feeling all that innocent.
“I can’t help it—” Slab began, but then there were choking sounds, as if someone had grabbed the big guy and stopped him in midsentence.
“You tell your friends to stay away from Emily, do you hear me?” Tyler ordered in a savage tone.
Yikes. Tyler was defending her, and with physical violence. Emily didn’t know whether to be flattered or scared out of her wits.
The female voice interjected, “I’m real sorry your little tootsie got in the way, Ty. But it’s got nada to do with me.”
Little tootsie? Oh, God, she means me. And Tyler didn’t even correct her. What was a “tootsie,” anyway? Was that like a girlfriend, or more of a slut-type person?
“Shanda, he told me he left the money with you. Do you think I’m the only one who’s going to come looking for you?” Tyler asked impatiently. “You’re involved whether you like it or not.”
“He didn’t leave no money with me!” she insisted. There was a thwack, as if somebody had gotten slapped. “You big dope! Why’d you go around telling people you left your stash with me?”
“I didn’t. I swear!” Slab protested. “Yeow! Stop it, Shan. Quit hittin’ me!”
The two of them argued back and forth for several minutes, with more smacking noises and more cries of “ouch!” and “yeow!” in Slab’s distinctive whine. It sounded as if Tyler tried to intercede and pull them apart a few times, but Shanda kept up the assault.
Sweet Shanda? Not so you could notice. For being the best time Slab had ever had, Shanda was one tough cookie.
“I guess I didn’t need to fly to San Francisco to protect her,” Emily murmured. “Slab was going to take her apart with his bare hands, huh? Sounds like vice versa to me.”
But their tiff was cut off by the sound of splintering wood, as if a door had been forced open, and heavy footsteps that boomed right over Emily’s head. Now another angry voice joined the fray.
“Slabicki!” the new person growled. “I heard you was back in town.”
From this set of noises, Emily could conclude that this was all happening one floor up, in whatever was on the third floor of The Flesh Pit over the bathroom. As she kept her ear pressed to the register, she heard Slab and the third man trade insults, plus another set of feet stomp around.
How many people were up there?
As if he were right next to her ear, Tyler muttered, “Damn it all to hell. This is just what I need. More mopes. The damn place is crawling with mopes.”
“Who you calling a mope?” the third man demanded. “Who are you, anyway?”
“I’m nobody,” Tyler retorted. “I’m not even here.”
“Yeah, well, you’re in my business now!”
And then he pounded across the floor, and there was the sickening sound of a fist meeting a face.
Tyler’s face? She gasped, almost pitching right off her perch on the sink. Not Tyler’s face!
She knew what she had to do, and she leaped off the sink so fast she skidded into the first stall. It didn’t matter. Her mind honed in on one thought and one thought only.
Save Tyler.
Chapter 5
EMILY RACED out of the rest room and up the stairs before she had a chance to think better of it. A bizarre cocktail of bravado and excitement flowed through her veins, catapulting her up those stairs, and all she could think of was that Emily Chaplin was ready to kick some butt, baby. As she got closer, the sounds of shouting and thrashing got louder, but she wasn’t frightened. The idea that there might be danger at the top of the stairs only spurred her on.
When she got there, she knew she was in the right place. The door had been smashed completely off its hinges, leaving a gaping hole opening into a lavishly decorated apartment. Not her taste—very purple, pretty darn tacky—but hey, it was plush. Since there were full-size posters of Shanda Leer, exotic artiste, mounted on every possible surface, it was easy to guess who lived there.
Although Emily slowed down and proceeded cautiously as she approached the door, no one glanced her way. They were too busy.
Near the doorway, Slab and some guy were rolling around on the floor, grunting and socking at each other. Clutching a skimpy robe around her inflated curves, wearing a pair of spike heels and not much else, Shanda was sort of squealing and trying not to trip over the two of them.
“Stop it! Stop it!” she cried. “You’re gonna wreck my place. You stop it right this minute!”
At the moment, the other guy was getting the best of Slab, pummeling his head into the carpet and creating a minor earthquake. With a shriek of distress, Shanda secured a rickety end table loaded with framed photos and glass knickknacks, all of them shaking with the force of Slab’s head hitting the floor.
Shanda and her knickknacks could fend for themselves—Emily had a more important mission. Steering past the wrestling match on the floor, she went straight for Tyler on the other side of the living room. He was holding up a chair like a lion tamer. Except the lion in this case was a short, stocky man with a twisted face. Tyler’s attacker wore a black pin-striped suit right out of a gangster movie, and he sliced a wicked-looking knife through the air in front of him, making a vicious snick-snick sound.
Knife? Her heart was in her throat as she scanned Tyler from stem to stern, looking for wounds. But all she saw was a thin slash in one sleeve of his leather jacket and a slightly puffy area on his lower lip where he’d presumably been punched. She sighed with relief. All in one piece. No major damage. She’d arrived in time.
“Put down the damn chair and fight like a man!” Mr. Pinstripes bellowed.
Since Tyler had a definite height advantage, Emily would have put her money on him in a fair fight, but the presence of the knife changed the odds somewhat. She wasn’t taking any chances.
Weapon, weapon! She didn’t have a weapon, she reminded herself, then decided she’d figure something out on the way.
Hugging the wall, she snagged one of her new shoes out of the bag and held it in front of her. The men were too intent on macho posturing to notice one small woman brandishing a shoe, so it wasn’t hard at all to sneak up behind the pin-striped creep, rap the back of his nasty little head hard with the wooden base of her sandal, and watch him plop to the floor like a ripe tomato falling off a vine. The knife clattered beside him.
“Yes!” she cheered. “I knew I could do it!”
“Emily?” Tyler yelled. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Rescuing you,” she returned sharply. Seizing the knife, she stuck it and her sandal back into the bag with her new clothes and undies. But she stopped, gaping down at the man on the floor. “I didn’t kill him, did I?”
“Nah. He’s moaning.” Tyler grabbed her hand, backing away. “In fact, I don’t think you hit him hard enough. He’s starting to come around. Let’s boogie, shall we?”
“I’m with you.”
Hanging on to Tyler for dear life, she hopped over Slab, who was lying apparently unconscious in the doorway. The two of them headed straight for the stairwell, not even stopping to breathe or synchronize watches. Tyler let her lead the way down, and she took the steps at a dizzying pace, trying to ignore the sound of pounding footsteps coming after them from above. By the time they hit the ground floor, shoving open a thick door that opened into an alley, she was gasping for breath.
Over the sound of approaching sirens, she shouted, “Rescuing good guys and escaping from bad guys is a lot less strenuous in the books.”
“We haven’t escaped yet.” Tyler’s expression was grim. “He’s not going to let us get away that easily. I suggest we—”
But a flashlight caught them where they stood in the alley.
“You folks okay down here?” a cool voice called to them.
“Oh, yes, Officer.” Emily straightened, putting on her perkiest I-am-a-Chaplin smile, rolling her pearls between her fingers so that the cop with the flashlight would be sure to notice she was a woman of quality and not some alley cat. “We were just wondering what all the commotion’s about. Did someone trip a fire alarm?”
“Nah. Place is busted. Bunch of underage kids getting tattoos. Plus we tripped over a domestic disturbance upstairs. You didn’t see anyone come out this way, did you?”
“No, sir, we didn’t,” she said with all due innocence. With Tyler’s hand in hers, she strolled nonchalantly out toward the sidewalk. “Oh, my, look at that.” She lifted an eyebrow Tyler’s way, assuming he’d want to stay clear of the authorities milling around The Flesh Pit. “That’s a lot of policemen, isn’t it, dear?”
“Quite a lot, darling,” he returned smoothly. “Makes a body feel safe, doesn’t it?”
“Indeed.”
Luckily, all the cops seemed to be flooding into The Flesh Pit through the front door, and nobody paid them any attention when they curved around the building and blended in with pedestrian traffic.
“I suggest we make tracks,” Tyler whispered in her ear.
“Agreed.”
Zigging and zagging, they sped up one street and down another, through an alley or two, across a courtyard, doubling back and branching out, finally zipping in the front and out the back of a Chinese restaurant.
“Couldn’t I just steal one little pot sticker off a tray?” she begged. “I didn’t have any dinner. I’m starving. I deserve something for my rescue effort, don’t I? I mean, I was awesome, wasn’t I?”
“Yeah. Awesome.” Tyler scanned the street one more time, for what she guessed was any sign of a pinstripe. “But we don’t have time for pot stickers just yet. Let’s make sure we’ve ditched Mack and his knife before we start celebrating.”
“Mack? Is that really his name?”
Tyler’s gaze was sardonic. “Are you kidding? How would I know his name? I’m not even sure what your name is.”
“That’s not true. You called me Emily,” she said logically. “I heard you. Ergo you know my name.”
“Yeah, but it could be a fake.”
She smiled up at him, slowing down as he pulled her across the street. “Do I look like someone who would use a fake name?” she asked with a laugh. “I mean, come on.”
“Emily, I don’t know anything about you except that you have a strange habit of popping up when I least expect it. Plus I checked you out on the register.” Tyler backed up into a quiet, shadowy park, an oasis of green in the bustling neighborhood. “Emily Bond, huh?” He paused, circling an arm around a tall tree, and she could see the dubious gleam in his eye even in the dim light. “That’s convenient. What are you, James Bond’s cousin? Sister?”
Uh-oh, she’d forgotten about that. “Don’t be silly. Emily Bond is a perfectly normal name. There are a lot of people named Bond in this world besides James.”
“Maybe. But you’re not one of them. The Gap boy said he was looking for ‘Emily Ch—.’ Since when does Bond start with Ch?”
“Maybe he made a mistake. Maybe my middle name’s…Charity.” Emily skipped right past him, out into an open area of grass. Over the tops of the trees, she could see the twin spires of a nearby church, illuminated so that they seemed to float there, up in the sky. The glow they cast down into the park was both beautiful and eerie at the same time.
“Emily.” Unexpectedly, he was right behind her, and she spun around, almost losing her balance. But he caught her and pulled her up against him. He leaned in so close that his warm breath tickled her ear when he whispered, “I know.”
“W-what?” Closing her eyes, allowing herself to melt into him just a tiny bit, she tried her best not to be intimidated.
So what if it was dark and private and incredibly romantic here in the park? So what if they’d just had an amazing escape and she was light-headed from lack of food and too much adrenaline and the heady, unbelievable triumph of bashing a jerk over the head with a shoe?
Out of your league, her inner good girl told her sternly. Having the best time of your life, her inner bad girl countered.
“What do you think you know?” she asked him finally, staring up into those moody green eyes, letting her gaze wander over that tiny, swollen ridge on his lower lip.
Soft, insistent, husky, the sound of his voice spun down her spine, weakening her already thin resistance. “I know you’re lying to me,” he murmured, tipping up her chin. “I know you’re following me. I just don’t know why. But you’re going to tell me, aren’t you?”
So he thought he could seduce her into spilling her guts? She lifted one finger to trace the bruise on his lip. “Does it hurt, where he hit you?”
“Emily, stop trying to distract me.” But he was the one who opened his mouth slightly, just enough to touch the tip of his tongue to the side of her finger, making her tremble and catch her breath. “You do know you’re playing with fire, don’t you?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “Oh, yes. I’m counting on it.”
And he licked her finger again. She felt she had to hang on or she’d fall down, right there in the middle of the park. That tiny touch of his warm, wet tongue against her cool flesh was enough to send her tripping over the edge. Too much excitement, too many reckless emotions in a too-long day. And he was too good at this.
She wound her arms around his neck, lifted herself into his embrace and pressed her mouth into his with all the energy and passion she could muster.
His arms fastened tight and hard around her, pulling her up into him, fitting her curves to the hard angles of his long body. The sensual assault of his lips and tongue was hot, relentless, delicious. He tasted like danger and joy and sin and nothing she’d ever imagined in a man or in a kiss.
If this mind-numbing desire was what she thought she’d wanted, she must have been out of her mind. It was incredible. Addictive. And terrifying.
A hungry little moan escaped her lips, and she couldn’t believe that sound came from her. “I want you,” she murmured, breathless, trembling.
“And I want to know what this is all about.”
His harsh tone was like a splash of cold water. She pushed away. “That again?”
“What do you really want, Emily? What are you doing here?” When she made no reply, Tyler smiled. It was a very dark, crooked smile. “Did you really think I’d take this any further when I know you’re still lying to me?”
“I am not!” Emily was furious. Humiliated, dripping with desire, and furious. “Okay, my name is Emily Chaplin. I lied about Bond. Big deal. I sort of ran away from home for the weekend and I didn’t want my mother to find me.” A new thought occurred to her. “Shoot. I wasn’t supposed to use my credit cards, either. But I forgot when I did the Gap thing.”
“Which is why the delivery boy knew your real name.”
“I didn’t say I was good at this. Yet.” She sighed. “Okay, so I already told you I’m a lawyer. That’s true. You also know I’m from Chicago because I was on the same plane you were. What else do you need to know?”
“No, I didn’t know you were from Chicago,” he said tightly. “So you spotted me on the plane and decided to follow me off? You are a stalker.”
“No, I did not follow you off the plane!” Actually, she’d followed him on the plane, which was even worse. “I didn’t see you during the flight at all,” she said, sticking to a grain of truth. “Not until I went to get a cab, and there you were. You remember, the taxi driver grabbed my briefcase and asked if I wanted to share. I came to San Francisco on a whim, I admit that. But I’m not a stalker. And I didn’t have anywhere better to go, so when you said you were going to North Beach, I thought why not? And then the B and B was so wonderful, it just seemed like fate. Like kismet. It even has a Kismet room! So I stayed.”
That sounded plausible, didn’t it? And less bizarre than the real story.
“So that’s when you started following me, after you came to the B and B? You’re saying you just stumbled into this when that guy came through my window?”
She avoided the direct question. “My motives were really very good. I wanted to help you. I could tell you were in trouble and I wanted to help. That is the absolute truth,” she swore.
“Little Ms. Emily Chaplin, lawyer from Chicago.” He ran a careless hand through the dark strands of his hair. “And let me guess—you’ve never done anything like this before in your life, and you decided this was your big chance to attach yourself to a bad boy in a leather jacket and get a ride to the wrong side of the tracks, am I right?”
“No.” She hesitated. “Okay, well, kind of. I mean, yes, I’ve never done anything like this before. But no to the rest of it.”
“Listen to me, Emily,” he told her, putting even more distance between them, stabbing a finger in the air. “I am nobody’s walk on the wild side. Do you hear me?”
“I hear you. But you’re being ridiculous.” She rushed to catch up before he left her in the park all by herself. “I’m not asking for a walk on the wild side. I’m telling you, you need my help.”
He flashed her a very unpleasant look.
“You can deny it all you like,” she persisted, “but we’re a good team. Where would you have been tonight without me? Sliced and diced in Shanda Leer’s living room?”
“I was doing fine.”
“Oh, yeah, right. I saved your adorable butt, Tyler O’Toole, and you know it.” Oops. She was supposed to leave out the adorable part.
His lips curved with amusement.
“Well, it’s the truth,” Emily insisted. “And you owe me.”
He stopped without warning, and she crashed into him before she could put on the brakes. But his hands bracketed her shoulders, holding her steady. “What exactly do you think I owe you?”
The first thing that flashed into her mind was a roll on the leather bed in The Wild One?
Best to keep that thought to herself.
“You at least owe me dinner,” she decided instead. “I really am starving.” In more ways than one. Love, sex, food…she had an abiding hunger for all of them. Best to keep that to herself, too.
“Okay. Dinner it is. Come on.” His long strides sent him down Columbus Avenue ahead of her. “I doubt ol’ Mack or anybody else will think to look for us in a restaurant. At the very least it’ll waste a few hours, and then maybe it will be safe to go back to Beau’s.” He regarded her with a speculative look. “And we can talk, you and I. How about we make a deal? For every question you answer about yourself and what you’re doing here, I’ll take a question, too. What do you say?”
“Deal,” she answered without a moment’s hesitation, positive she had the best of that bargain. The life of boring Emily Chaplin was an open book.
The life of mysterious Tyler O’Toole was better than any spy novel.
TYLER REFILLED her wineglass, congratulating himself on an excellent strategy. After the kiss-and-tell in Washington Square had backfired, he’d switched to Plan B—ply her with pasta, a nice, smooth Chianti, a little more Chianti, and eventually she’d tell him anything he wanted to know.
He now had her entire résumé and then some, including a blow-by-blow account of her trip to The Flesh Pit. Meanwhile, he’d relied on dodging, obfuscation and evasion, and she hadn’t learned one thing about him. Nice girls were so easy it wasn’t even a fair fight.
“What do you do for a living?” she’d asked.
“Nothing at the moment.”
There was a pause. “And what did you do when you still did something?”
He’d shrugged. “This and that.”
Her eyes had narrowed. “What did whatever you did have to do with hookers and strippers?”
That took him by surprise. “Who told you I had anything to do with hookers or strippers?”
“Kate.”
He’d made a mental note to have a talk with Kate. To Emily, he’d offered another shrug. “Let’s just say I have a weakness for underdogs. I offered help when they needed it.”
“Like me!” she’d said happily. “Like me with you.”
And as neatly as that, they were successfully off the subject of him and back to her.
Of course, that still didn’t explain why she had decided that she needed to attach herself to him. She wasn’t terribly coherent on that part. Could she be more deceptive than he thought? Nah, she was a terrible liar. So the bit about concluding that he was in trouble and needed her help must be true. Because she’d liked his looks in the back seat of a cab, or because she’d been captivated by Beau’s B and B, or because her curiosity had been aroused when the thug came through the window. Insane, but true.
“How exactly did you think you could help me?” he inquired, trying not to notice how erotic it was when she sucked the marinara sauce off her spaghetti like that.
“Legal help,” she said immediately. “Clearly you’re in a jam.”
“You always operate on so little information?” He shook his head, latching onto a hunk of bread to keep his hands busy. Otherwise he’d be tempted to reach across the table and brush that little smudge of sauce off her chin. “Or did you just have a burning need to work on a merit badge?”
“Oh, I get it.” She gave him this cornball smile, all cutie-pie Midwestern girl, and he started to melt in spite of himself. “Merit badge. ’Cause you think I’m a real Girl Scout. Pretty funny.”
“Yeah. Pretty funny.”
Actually, not funny at all. Could she really be as genuine and sincere as she seemed? Or was she snowing him down to his shoes?
Tyler took a big swallow of wine, watching her, weighing her, mentally taking her apart and putting her back together.
The bottom line was there was just something about Emily. Something about the sparkle in those round, trusting hazel eyes, about the perfect Little Dutch Girl hairdo that seemed to frame her face and make her eyes even bigger, about the bright, uncomplicated radiance of her smile. About the way she attacked her clams with the same gusto she’d kissed him with in Washington Square.
That was something, all right.
And if he didn’t watch himself, he would be falling for her crazy, mixed-up charms. Big-time.
“Great time for that,” he muttered under his breath. “You are on the verge of losing your office, your practice and your kneecaps. Sure, great time to fall for Susie Sorority.”
“What did you say?” she asked politely.
“Nothing.”
“I thought you said something about Sukie Sommersby. Now that would be a coincidence.” Emily laughed, shaking her not-quite-golden brown hair.
Tyler found himself distracted by the way the candlelight played across the fall of her shiny hair.
“Sukie and I go way back.”
“Sorry. Don’t know anybody named Sukie.”
But Emily was off and running, doing this riff on the adventures of her old college chum, who seemed to have lived quite the roller-coaster life. Waving her hands for emphasis, giggling, trying on and discarding goofy accents to sketch the various personages who drifted through Sukie’s madcap escapades, Emily was irresistible.
Her performance also gave him a pretty good idea of why she thought it was acceptable to jump on a plane to San Francisco and then run off on a wild-goose chase once she got there. Because it was what Sukie would do. Damn Sukie. And what kind of name was Sukie, anyway?
Oh, well, at least the collected stories of the life and times of Sukie Sommersby gave him a chance to watch Emily lick the cream out of a cannoli.
There were few pleasures in life to top that.
TYLER FELT ABOUT TEN YEARS older by the time he took her back to Beau’s B and B. Given how giggly and clingy Emily was getting, he probably shouldn’t have poured quite so much wine down her. Or had the last few glasses himself.
Good thing he’d found her credit card when the bill came. Not only did he verify that her name really was Emily Chaplin, but he didn’t have to wash dishes to get them out of Caffe Fiori. By himself, he couldn’t afford the first bottle of Chianti, let alone a second one.
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