One More Valentine

by Anne Stuart

  "Would you like to get off me?" Helen Emerson said in a voice that was both tart and breathless.

  He opened his eyes and looked down into hers. Her glasses had been knocked off, and her face was pale with shock. Her breathing was rapid, her heartbeat racing against his, and he figured he better get off her damned quick before she figured he was hard.

  Of course, Ms. Emerson struck him as such an innocent that she might not even recognize his condition. He climbed off her, standing up and reaching down to haul her up beside him. For a moment she didn't touch him, and her expression was both dazed and hostile, before she finally put her smaller, fine-boned hand in his and let him pull her to her feet.

  "Why'd you do that?" Her voice sounded dazed, rusty.

  "I thought you were going to be hit by a car."

  Her face turned even paler, and she swayed slightly. "You mean someone was trying to kill me?" she squeaked out.

  He caught her arms with his hands, resisting the impulse to pull her against him, to warm her with his warmth, shield her with his strength. He held her loosely, ready to tighten his grip if she should sway again. "Of course not," he said easily, convincingly. "I just saw someone take the corner too damned fast and I decided I'd better make my move. He didn't come anywhere near you, but I couldn't be sure of that ahead of time. He must have been drunk."

  As a matter of fact the driver of the car had come so damned close Rafferty had felt the tail of his coat whip against the hood of the car, but Helen was too shook-up to realize the truth.

  "You didn't get a license plate number, did you?" She stepped back pushing a hand through her long dark hair. Her hand was trembling.

  "Too many numbers," he said, shaking his head. In his day things had been a lot easier, and memorizing a license plate didn't take a Ph.D. Of course, knowing the number wouldn't do any good. Ricky Drago would have used a stolen car for his murderous little excursion.

  "You were very fast," she said. "You may have saved my life. I… thank you."

  She didn't want to be beholden, he could see that. And while part of him wanted to lie and say she'd been perfectly safe, he still needed to stick to her like glue. Something had clicked in, made the decision for him. This was going to be one two-day sojourn where he did his saint impersonation. He was going to look out for Helen Emerson and keep Ricky Drago at a safe distance. By February 15 it would be someone else's responsibility.

  "No problem," he said, liking that particular phrase. "I was known as Fast Jamey when I played college football."

  "Where did you go?"

  As a matter of fact, he'd been one of the few members of the Chicago underworld to have graduated from an Ivy League school. Harvard had never been particularly proud of this particular alumnus, but Bugs Moran had found it amusing to order him around. "Harvard," he said.

  "You don't look very Ivy League," she said, moving away from him.

  "Yeah, I know. And I don't look like a lawyer. Exactly what do I look like, Ms. Emerson?" His voice was cool and mocking.

  "Humphrey Bogart."

  "I beg your pardon?" She'd managed to throw him a curve. There was a trace of color back in her pale cheeks, and her dark eyes were beginning to sparkle.

  "Crossed with a little bit of John Garfield in his prime. And maybe just a touch of Cary Grant when he was being evil."

  "You telling me I look like a movie star?" he demanded.

  She shook her head. "No, Mr. Rafferty. I'm telling you you look like a gangster."

  It didn't make the slightest bit of sense to her, and Helen Emerson had always prided herself on being sensible, at least in her dealings with the opposite sex. There was no reason in the world for her to be sitting in a crowded luncheonette, across from someone who looked like a time-traveling gangster, albeit a dangerously, seductively appealing one, and watch while he devoured more cholesterol than she ate in a month, smoked cigarettes and coddled her.

  She did feel coddled, though, and that was probably the reason she was there. He'd whisked her away from the busy sidewalk, taken her into Murphy's Diner and plied her with tea and a little tin of aspirin that looked as if it had to be half a century old. He'd picked up her scattered papers, wrapped her coat tightly around her, put his hand under her arm and steered her to a small haven of quiet and safety, ignoring her weak protests that she could manage on her own. Of course she could. She just wasn't sure she wanted to.

  He was trying to charm her. She knew that perfectly well—she hadn't been a prosecutor for three years without being able to recognize when a defense lawyer was trying to flatter her. Of course, Rafferty had no reason. She'd already let Billy Moretti walk, and even if she felt a twinge of guilt about that, her instincts still insisted she'd been right.

  Her instincts also told her that James Rafferty wouldn't hurt her. Even if he kept his gaze shuttered and his charm surface, she knew deep inside that he was no threat to her. Except to her peace of mind.

  Maybe she was a fool to listen to her instincts. They weren't infallible, even if they'd served her well for most of her life. If she had any of the common sense her family believed her to have she'd dismiss Rafferty and the odd, trembling effect he was having on her senses, and get on with her life.

  But she wasn't going to do that. She'd already told her boss she was taking the rest of the day off—going back would look more than odd. And while she ought to get rid of Rafferty, she couldn't bring herself to do it. He'd leave her soon enough, once he was certain she'd gotten over her scare.

  Funny, she hadn't seen any car heading her way. She still wasn't quite certain if she believed him—after all, cars didn't just mow people down as a matter of course. But if there'd been no car, what was it he wanted from her? And would she be willing to give it to him?

  He leaned back and lit a cigarette without asking, taking in a deep drag of the unfiltered tobacco. "Don't you know how bad those things are for you?" she asked in a disapproving voice.

  "I expect you'll tell me," he replied, blowing a lazy smoke ring in her direction. She watched, fascinated, as it drifted and floated across the table, dissipating in front of her eyes like a fairy garland.

  Absurd thought, when it was toxic waste dancing in her direction. "It'll kill you," she said flatly.

  He smiled then, a wry, self-mocking smile that was as appealing as it was irritating. "No, it won't."

  "The surgeon general…"

  "The surgeon general doesn't know squat," Rafferty said, leaning back and watching her from behind hooded eyes. "I'm not going to die from lung cancer."

  "Emphysema, then."

  "Not that, either. I'll probably go out in a hail of bullets, like something out of Scar face. "

  "You've been seeing too many movies."

  "So have you," he replied. "As a matter of fact, I prefer old movies. Very old movies. But then, I'm older than you are."

  "Not by much."

  "You'd be surprised," he murmured, stubbing out the cigarette. "Are you ready to go?"

  "Go where?"

  "I'm driving you home."

  "I'm perfectly capable of driving myself," she said.

  "No, you're not. Even when you're feeling fine you're a lousy driver. You're too slow and cautious. I was amazed we made it downtown in one piece. After a shake-up like you just had you'd probably plow into an ice truck before you made it halfway home."

  "An ice truck?" Helen was mystified.

  Rafferty didn't even blink. "Don't they deliver ice in Chicago? To bars and hotels and such."

  "I suppose so, but…"

  "Don't argue with me, Helen. I'm driving you home and that's that."

  She stared up at him. "I don't like being told what to do," she said sharply. "I grew up with four brothers and a father who all thought they knew what was best for me, and if I were the slightest bit of a wimp they would have walked all over me. I make my own decisions in this life."

  "What kind of decisions did they try to make for you?" he asked, draining his cup of coffee.
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  "They didn't want me to go to law school. They didn't want me to work for the State's Attorney. They wanted me to marry a boy I grew up with and have babies and be a good cop's wife."

  "And you didn't want to."

  "No," she said flatly. "I don't think I'll ever get married."

  "Come on, counselor, you're a little long in the tooth but you're not that bad-looking," he murmured.

  She stared at him in shock, before she realized he was teasing her. "It's kind of you to say so," she replied in a dulcet tone. "As a matter of fact, I haven't yet met anyone who's worthy of me." She leaned back, surveying him with a cool air, and for the first time she realized what a benefit a cigarette could be. She would have loved to take a deep drag and blow a cool stream of smoke directly into those challenging dark eyes.

  He just looked at her for a moment, and a smile curved his mouth. It was different from his other smiles—there was no trace of mockery this time, and his dark, brooding eyes lightened for a moment. "Too bad, Ms. Emerson. Maybe you'll just have to die a virgin."

  She knocked over her tea. Fortunately she'd finished most of it, and the puddle of dark liquid spread across the table at a slow enough rate to keep her busy mopping it up with paper napkins, hoping he wouldn't notice the dark flush that had risen to her face. How in God's name did he know? Did he have X-ray vision or something?

  He rose, tossing a handful of bills down on the table. "Come on, counselor. You're still a bit unsteady."

  She glared at him, but it did no good. He just continued to look at her out of those steady, amused eyes, and if she pushed it he'd probably say something even more outrageous. "You can drive me home," she allowed. "But only because I'm not interested in arguing with you."

  "What are you interested in doing with me, Helen?"

  "Getting rid of you as fast as I can. I'm assuming the best way to do that is to let you drive me home."

  "You're a fast learner," he said. "Give me your keys."

  "Come on, now, Rafferty," she complained, loath to give in.

  He just stood in front of her, hand outstretched. "The keys."

  She looked down at his hand. It was a surprisingly elegant hand, with long, deft fingers, a narrow palm, a strong wrist with a thin, old-fashioned gold watch. "Bully," she said, reaching into her jumbled purse for the keys.

  He held the passenger door for her when they reached the car, a first-time occurrence for Helen that she viewed with mistrust. She wasn't used to men holding doors for her, putting their strong, hard hands under her elbow, taking care of her. She didn't like it. Even if she found it dangerously seductive.

  He probably only opened the door to keep her from jumping into the driver's seat, she thought grumpily as she fastened her seat belt around her. She watched with covert interest as he climbed in beside her, folding his long legs into her compact car with all the elegant disdain of a circus clown climbing into a miniature car with twelve of his cohorts and a chimpanzee besides. He stared at the regulation dashboard for a long, intent moment, as if it were something comparable to the space shuttle, and he made no effort to fasten his seat belt.

  "You do know how to drive, don't you?" Helen asked.

  "I'm used to a bigger car." He turned the key until the starter whined in pain, then stared down at the floor. "Where's the clutch?"

  "I don't need one. This is an automatic. Are you sure you know how to drive?"

  "Yes." He still made no move to put the car into Drive.

  "You know what an automatic is, don't you? You just push the little knob to D for Drive and then you aim the car. Very simple."

  "Very simple," he muttered, pushing the gear stick. The car surged forward, he stomped on the brake and Helen banged her head on the window.

  "Terrific," she muttered. "You'd better wear your seat belt. For one thing, it's the law. For another, I get the feeling we're not about to have the smoothest ride."

  For some reason the seat belt seemed just as foreign to him as the automatic transmission. He was cursing under his breath, polite enough curses, as he dealt with the thing, then he turned his attention to the traffic. "You usually drive through this stuff?" he asked in horror. "How in the hell did they manage to make so many cars?"

  "There are lots of people in Chicago, Rafferty, and all of them drive."

  "The hell with it," he said. And pulled out directly in front of a very large pickup truck.

  He might not drive well, but he drove very fast. They missed the pickup, avoided a Mercedes, scraped the highway divider and skidded past a taxi. He was hunched over the small steering wheel of her car, and he seemed out of place, out of time in her tiny little car.

  "You're not used to foreign cars, are you?" she asked, clutching the door handle and surreptitiously pressing her own feet to the floor every time she wished he would brake.

  "No." He yanked the steering wheel, whipping around the corner and heading back toward Elm Street. He might not know much about her car but his sense of direction was impeccable. He was using shortcuts it had taken her months to find.

  "What was your first car?" She tried steady breathing to calm herself as he zipped in between two huge delivery trucks.

  "An old Packard," he muttered, reaching into his pocket for his cigarettes.

  "No!" she shrieked. In a calmer voice she managed to say, "I'd rather you didn't smoke."

  "Don't tell me. This is a smoke-free car," he said wryly, taking a corner on two tires.

  "Not particularly. I'd just prefer you to keep both hands on the wheel."

  "You could always light it for me."

  For a moment she was struck dumb. She hated cigarettes; they were nasty, smelly things. She hated smokers with their noxious cloud and their disregard for other people's lungs. And yet the thought of lighting a cigarette for James Rafferty, moving it from her mouth to his, was almost unbearably erotic.

  "No cigarettes," she said flatly.

  "I expected as much."

  "I've never even seen a Packard. Weren't they luxury cars from the thirties?"

  "They had 'em in the twenties and the forties, too. I had one of the last models."

  "I bet it was wonderful."

  "It was big. And fast." He zoomed through an intersection just as the light turned red, missing a pedestrian by mere inches.

  "Do you think you could drive a little slower?" she asked through gritted teeth.

  "No. I need a cigarette."

  "Do you know how bad those things are for you?"

  "Do you know how much smokers hate to hear about how bad those things are for you?"

  "Slow down and I won't lecture."

  "Let me smoke and I'll slow down."

  Stalemate. The rest of the drive was in a silence punctuated only by the squeal of brakes and the muffled shrieks of terror. She finally gave up and closed her eyes, gripping the seat with both hands and offering a hopeful prayer to the paternalistic Catholic God of her childhood. When she opened her eyes the car had pulled to a stop, directly outside her tumbledown building.

  "How do I stop this thing?" he grumbled, already reaching for his cigarettes.

  "P for Park. Just think mnemonics." Her hands were shaking slightly as she unfastened her seat belt. All in all, her day had been too damned exciting, and it was barely past noon.

  "Just think what?" He'd turned off the car, fumbled clumsily with his own seat belt before climbing out onto the sidewalk.

  "Never mind." She opened her door before he could do it for her, and he had to content himself with smoking his damned cigarette. She held out her hand, knowing she needed to get rid of him. Knowing that she didn't want to. "I really appreciate everything you've done."

  He looked down at her, and there was a faint trace of amusement in his dark, cynical eyes. "Are you trying to give me the brush-off?"

  An odd turn of phrase. "Of course not," she stammered.

  "Good," he said. "Because I'd love to come in for a cup of coffee."

  "I think I'm out of coffee."<
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  "I'll drink water."

  "Chicago water?" she echoed. "You've got to be kidding."

  "You mean you can't even drink the water anymore?" he demanded, astonished. "What the hell happened to this city? You can't smoke, you can't drive though the millions of cars on the road and now you're telling me you can't even drink the goddamned water? I can't say I think much about progress. People were better off in the twenties."

  "How would you know?"

  That stopped him. He shrugged, and once more there was that charming, false smile on his face. "Just a guess." He didn't touch her, but then, he didn't have to. Even standing almost a foot away, his presence was a tangible thing, intense and overpowering. It didn't make sense, the attraction that was stronger than anything she'd ever felt in her life. She couldn't be that drawn to a distant, mocking stranger.

  But she was.

  "I probably have some instant."

  For a moment he looked blank. "Instant?" he echoed.

  "Instant coffee. You said you wanted coffee, remember? I think I used up the last of my beans, but I might still have an old jar left over. If you're not fussy."

  He just looked at her for a moment. An endless, eternal moment, and she had the strange feeling she'd made a much greater commitment than sharing a simple cup of coffee. That somehow she'd offered him much much more than that.

  "I'm not fussy," he said in his deep voice. And as he followed her up the short flight of steps to her front door, she wondered whether she might have made a very big mistake.

  And she knew she didn't care.

  She was messy, all right, Rafferty thought as he surveyed the living room with its three layers of peeling wallpaper, its piles of newspapers, the breakfast and dinner dishes and files and clothing littering the table. His mother had always kept a spotlessly neat house. It had been her pride and joy and his constant frustration. A man could feel at home in a place like this.

  On top of the untidy comfort of the place, there was one of the largest televisions he'd ever seen. He had no doubt it was color, and while he couldn't begin to guess what the oblong black boxes on top of it were, they probably had something to do with it.