by Anne Stuart
She didn’t even dare take the time for a shower. She didn’t really want one. This was all she was going to have of Stephen McNab—fate and history wouldn’t allow her more, and she had no intention of washing away the scent and feel of him before she had to.
So many times during the last twelve hours she had wanted to tell him the truth. Never had she felt so open, so vulnerable, her defenses and her secrets crumbling around her. So many times she’d bitten her lip to keep from doing just that. His determination to catch Blackheart was so all-consuming that she had no doubt at all if she told him who she was and what she was really doing in California, he’d let go of her, jump out of bed and start reading her her rights.
So she kept her mouth shut, except to kiss him. And when the night began to vanish, a fitful daylight crept over the hillside and dreams were over, she knew she had to escape. She didn’t believe he’d let her go that easily, that he’d just assume she’d changed her mind about being involved with him and leave her alone. She was going to have to come up with an excuse, something plausible to keep him away while she finished her job with Marco. Then by the time she was gone, he might be able to summon up some gratitude that he hadn’t become more involved.
She shivered as she stepped onto the porch. The temperature wasn’t that bad, but the chill came from deep inside her soul. She wished she could tell herself she was being noble, but she didn’t even have that solace. Denying herself Stephen McNab now was simply anticipating his horrified rejection. As a defense against heartbreak it wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing.
Her sneakered feet were quickly soaked by the heavy dew on the grass as she crossed to the rough dirt road. She shivered, pulling her thick sweater closer around her, and headed down the road.
He caught up with her five minutes later. The battered Bronco pulled up beside her, the passenger door slammed open, and he sat there in the driver’s seat, glaring across at her, dressed in jeans, an old sweater and nothing else, his bare feet on the brake. “Get in.”
“Stephen . . .”
“Get the hell in. We’ll discuss this when you’re in the car.”
“I really don’t think I’d better—”
“I’m bigger than you, Dany. A lot. You’re getting into this car.”
He’d do it, too, she thought. He was angry, not the cold, biting rage he directed at people like Marco and Blackheart, but a hot, heavy fury. If she stalled he would grab her, then he’d hate himself for it. It was one thing she could do for him, she thought, climbing into the front seat and keeping her head lowered, and at the same time she could enjoy the pleasurable torment of a few more minutes of his company. While she thought very fast of a plausible excuse.
He turned the Bronco around on the narrow road, each turn of the steering wheel accomplished with much more force than necessary. Leaning forward, he flicked on the heater, blasting her damp, chilled legs with blessed warmth. The Bronco kept moving, past the empty cabin, on up the winding road toward the top of the mountain.
“I don’t think much of one-night stands, Dany,” he said after a while, his eyes trained on the road, his profile grim.
“I don’t either.” Her voice wasn’t much more than a whisper, but he could hear her.
“Then why?”
She deliberately misunderstood him. “I couldn’t help it. I’m very attracted to you.”
“That’s not what I was talking about, and you know it. I mean why did you run?”
“I don’t suppose you’d believe me if I said I hadn’t enjoyed myself.”
His laugh was humorless. “No. I was there, remember? And I don’t think attraction and enjoyment are the operative words in this situation. This wasn’t a yuppie mating ritual.”
“We had sex, Stephen.”
“We made love, Dany. There’s a big difference.” They’d reached the top of the hill and a small turnaround with a graveled parking space. Stephen pulled up the edge and parked, but left the motor running so that the heat still surrounded them in a cocoonlike warmth. “What’s going on, Dany? Don’t you think you can trust me enough to tell the truth?”
It was Dany’s turn to laugh, but all she could manage was a dry, mirthless chuckle. In her ears it sounded definitely on the watery side, and she bit her lip, hard. “It’s not you who can’t be trusted.”
“Are you feeling guilty about Marco? The man is pond scum—he doesn’t deserve any loyalty or consideration.”
“Stephen . . .”
“You don’t owe him anything. I don’t want you going anywhere near him again—he’s too dangerous. I think you need police protection. Twenty-four hours a day. And I’m offering it free of charge. Move in with me, Dany. I promise you, you won’t regret it.”
“I can’t.” This was worse than she’d anticipated. She’d expected an inquisition, not enticement. She leaned against the door, away from him, hugging herself in her misery. “I just need to go back. My job’s there, my friends are there. This was very nice. . . .”
“Nice?” he echoed, clearly affronted.
“All right, it wasn’t nice!” she exploded. “It was wonderful, heavenly, the best thing that ever happened to me. But it’s doomed! Hopeless! Can you get that through your thick cop’s head?”
She’d been hoping to anger him, but his gray eyes merely narrowed as he watched her. “Why?”
“Take me back, Stephen.”
“Why?” he persisted, his voice softer now, less demanding. He reached out his big, strong hand to gently stroke her tear-damp cheek. “I hate to tell you this, Dany, but I’m falling in love with you. So you can at least tell me why we’re doomed.”
It was the last straw. No one in all of her twenty-four years had ever told her they loved her. Something inside her burst, a tiny bubble of anger and hope, and she turned to him, her eyes filled with despair. “Because I’m a thief, Detective McNab. Any cop’s a natural enemy. My real name is Danielle Bunce, and I’ve spent the last four years in Europe as an accessory to a cat burglar. On top of that, I’m John Patrick Blackheart’s half-sister.” She leaned back and closed her eyes, breathing deeply, waiting for those words she’d heard so often on the telly. “You have the right to remain silent,” it began. She couldn’t remember the rest, but it didn’t matter. She was about to hear them.
What she heard in the cab of the Bronco was absolute silence. Just the sound of the engine, the noisy whirr of the fan as it spun heat around them. And the steady breathing of the man beside her.
When she could stand the quiet no longer, she held out her slender wrists in front of him, keeping her face averted. “Where are the handcuffs, Detective? I won’t put up a fight.”
But it wasn’t cold metal closing around her wrist. Warm, long-fingered flesh was encircling her, pulling her over the bench seat and into his lap. “Damn,” he muttered. “You don’t make things easy, do you?” And he kissed her.
It was a while before she surfaced from that kiss, but when she did, she was more confused than ever. “You can’t, Stephen,” she said breathlessly. “I’m everything you despise. Didn’t you hear what I just told you? Didn’t you . . . ?”
“Hush,” he whispered. “I heard you. And you’re not everything I despise. I told you, I’m falling in love with you, and you could be a chain saw murderer and it wouldn’t make any difference to me. We can work it out.”
“Stephen . . .”
“I’ve spent my entire law enforcement career watching scum make deals and get off with a slap on the wrist. For once plea bargaining is going to work in my favor. Do you have any warrants out on you?”
She just stared at him. “As far as I know, no one has ever suspected my involvement. Or my partner’s.”
“That’s a different matter. You can turn state’s evidence, get off with a suspended sentence, but Blackheart’s going away for a long ti
me.” The grim satisfaction in his voice did little to help her state of mind.
She pulled away from him, and he let her go, watching her as she scrambled back to her side of the car. Here would be the perfect revenge that she’d always sought. Stephen assumed Blackheart was her partner—she could incriminate him and disappear.
But the stupid thing was, it no longer mattered. Whatever Blackheart’s reasons for abandoning her had been, they must have felt justified at the time. She no longer needed her pound of flesh, not when her own heart lay shattered and bleeding on the ground. “Sorry, can’t help you,” she muttered, staring out the window.
“Can’t?” he said. “Or won’t?”
“There’s nothing I can tell you that will help you in your vendetta against my half-brother,” she replied with absolute honesty.
As usual Stephen was more alert than she’d hoped. “He’s not your partner, is he?” he asked in a quiet voice. “Does he even know you’re his sister?”
Dany’s only reply was a strangled sound that was half a negation, half a sob.
“He doesn’t,” Stephen said. “So that leaves Marco.” Leaning forward, he threw the gears into reverse and began backing around. He headed down the hill at a reasonably sedate pace, and the brief glance Dany stole at his strong, world-weary profile told her only that he was deep in thought.
When they reached the cabin again he turned off the engine, staring out the windshield with an abstracted air.
Dany couldn’t stand the silence any longer. “What are you going to do? What next?”
He turned to look at her then, and the tenderness in his eyes twisted her newly vulnerable heart. “I’m going to take you back into the cabin and prove to you that you don’t have to be frightened of me. And then I’m going to try to figure out what I can do without incriminating you.”
“And if it’s impossible? If there’s no way you can do anything without sending me to prison?
«Did you ever see The Maltese Falcon?»
“I beg your pardon?”
“An old Humphrey Bogart movie—a real classic. He’s a private eye and the woman he loves is a murderer who killed his best friend. Problem is, she loves him too.”
“What does he do?” She was fascinated despite herself.
“He tells her he’ll wait twenty years till she gets out of prison.”
“What does she say?”
“Something along the lines of ‘Go to hell.’”
It surprised a laugh out of her. “So what happens?”
“I don’t know. That’s where the movie ends.”
“You can turn me in, Stephen. The most they’ll do is extradite me back to Europe. If I tell the truth, I’ll get off lightly for helping them nail . . . my accomplice. If I insist I’m innocent, they probably don’t have enough to convict me on. So it’s all right. Start the car, let’s drive back to San Francisco, and you can arrest me.”
For a long moment he didn’t move. She could see his big hands clasped on the steering wheel, so tightly that his knuckles were white with strain. And then he sank back, sighing. “Can’t arrest someone without a warrant,” he said, pulling the keys out of the ignition and flinging them into the underbrush surrounding the cabin. “And there’s no evidence on which to issue one. You’re stuck.”
“Stuck?”
“Here. With me.”
“Stephen,” she said, desperation making her normally rich voice high-pitched. “You can’t turn your back on everything you believe in. For pity’s sake, take me in and arrest me!”
He was already out of the Bronco, walking around to her side and opening the door. “Sorry, babe. The only place I’m taking you is to bed.” And scooping her up into his arms, he carried her up the creaking front steps of the cabin, kicking the door shut behind them.
FERRIS BYRD WAS very, very angry. After days of stupidity, she’d finally put two and two together and come up with a nice neat package of four. Patrick’s long-lost sister had appeared on the scene, probably with a burglar friend in tow, and Blackheart was doing everything he could to save the girl from her folly. Including lying to and misleading his fiancée, she thought bitterly. Her last, lingering doubts had vanished. Blackheart hadn’t taken to a life of crime once more. He’d taken to a life of chivalry, curse him.
She sat in her messy apartment, staring out the windows into the foggy San Francisco afternoon. While Ferris sat on the living-room love seat and thought, Blackie had come in, eaten the Brie and disappeared again. She welcomed the quiet, welcomed the distant noise of the traffic, welcomed the cocoon of fog that surrounded her apartment. She sat alone with her dark and shifting thoughts, her hands clenched into angry fists.
She knew she should be reasonable. She knew she should be relieved at finally understanding what lay behind Blackheart’s mysterious behavior. After all, she had six brothers and sisters, countless nieces and nephews, a vast, sprawling, affectionate family. She of all people should understand blood ties.
But she didn’t. All she knew was that Blackheart had sacrificed her and her love, and was well on the way to sacrificing his career and possibly even his freedom for a spoiled, amoral young woman who had appeared out of nowhere to wreak havoc and destroy their lives.
She wasn’t going to let it happen. She wasn’t going to roll over and play dead, sit back and wait to see if Blackheart could pull it off. This was her own future at stake, not just her erstwhile lover’s. She’d spent enough time crying, enough time eating. Now it was time for action. And the first thing she was going to do was confront Danielle Porcini and find out what the hell she thought she was doing.
The memory of Tarzan, the albino tiger, suddenly shot into her brain, and she hesitated. That had been no accident—someone had tried to kill her. Could it have been Blackheart’s sister? Blackheart himself?
The absurdity of the last question made her laugh out loud, the sound soft and comforting in the shadowy living room. No matter what Blackheart’s transgressions, and they were many, he would never hurt her. He loved her, she could at least accept that, and it made everything else, every danger, every tall building she had to leap, worth it.
But what about Danielle? Her appearance at the time had been fortuitous, to say the least. But she’d also helped Ferris lure the carnivorous beast back into the cage. It would have been a simple enough matter to leave her there, to lock her in and come back after her screams had died away.
No. Danielle’s appearance hadn’t been coincidence, but it hadn’t been murderous, either. She’d known Ferris had been in trouble, and she’d come to save her.
So whom did that leave? Dany’s mysterious accomplice, the current cat burglar himself. And there was really no mystery to it at all. Marco Porcini might not have the brains to plan and carry out the complex robberies in Europe, but he had the agility and strength. And Danielle Porcini had brains in abundance—not to mention her knowledge of the family business.
Was there a family tendency toward burglary, some sort of recessive gene or ingrained trait that was passed from generation to generation? Was she going to give birth to a passel of baby cat burglars?
The very thought boggled her mind—because she had no doubt whatsoever that she was going to marry John Patrick Blackheart, ne Edwin Bunce, and give birth to their children. Maybe if he changed back his name and they produced a small handful of little Bunces, they might break with the family tradition. Or maybe they’d better make sure at least one of them became a lawyer, so she or he could bail the rest out of jail.
Ferris stretched out on the love seat with a sigh, relaxing for the first time in days. Now that she at last had a very good idea of what was going on, she could handle it. Whatever Danielle and Marco Porcini were here to steal, Blackheart would stop them. She was just going to have to make sure her once and future fiancé didn’t succumb to temptation and s
teal it himself.
He needed her. He needed her to drill some sense into his head, to make sure he didn’t take the fall for his sister. He needed her almost as much as she needed him. And if she found her need for him frightening, threatening, she was no longer going to fight it. She’d simply have to learn to live with her fear.
At least she didn’t have to worry about Regina. The Porcinis hadn’t been anywhere near that blasted Van Gogh, and the painting wasn’t due to be moved until after the circus benefit, when the Porcini Family Circus would be packing and moving to the next stop on their American tour. No, it was something else, and Regina, at least, was safe.
IT TOOK DANY TOO long to find the keys where he’d tossed them. Even in the glinting early-afternoon sunlight they were hard to find, and she wasted precious time searching through the long grass surrounding the cabin.
Stephen was in the shower. She knew he took long showers—she’d already taken one with him, and while he didn’t have her as a distraction just now, he still was a man who took his time once he got into the stall.
Still, she couldn’t count on anything. The rest of the day had been spent in bed, glorious, endless hours that had apparently left Stephen sure of himself and their relationship. Once the pleasure faded, it had only filled her with despair.
She couldn’t do it to him. She couldn’t allow him to turn his back on everything he believed in, just because he imagined he was in love with her. She’d learned over the long hard years that she wasn’t worth loving, and she certainly wasn’t worth a man destroying his life over her.
Never before had she put someone else’s needs ahead of her own. Never had she made any sacrifice for a greater good—the greater good had always been what suited her. But not this time. This time she was going to be sickeningly noble. She was going to do one decent thing to counterbalance the years of anger and selfishness. She was going to abandon Stephen up at this cabin, without a vehicle, without a telephone, miles and miles away from the nearest town. She was going back to Marco, going through with the job, then she’d be gone.
