by Mary McBride
Okay. The tattoo had probably been a bad idea. He wasn't the kind of person who made rash decisions or did things on the spur of the moment. Other than his proposal of marriage, this was probably the only other impulsive thing he'd ever done in his life. When he'd blithely walked into the tattoo parlor, he didn't have a clue what was involved or how long the process would take.
Tiny, the sole proprietor and tattoo artist in residence, who looked like a guy who'd quit his day job as a linebacker for the Chicago Bears and currently moonlighted as a Hell's Angel, told Bobby that the fully shaded red heart job that he'd described shouldn't take more than twenty minutes.
“Hardly any line work,” Tiny had said. “It's your dragons and your gargoyles that take time. A red heart? Hell. Piece of cake. Get in the chair.”
That was where it started going downhill faster than a kid on a tin tray. The chair Tiny pointed to was one of those dentist deals, and Bobby broke out in a cold sweat as soon as he slung himself out in the damned thing.
“First I'm gonna shave your arm,” Tiny said. “Right or left?”
For a moment Bobby couldn't remember which side his real heart was on, but then he felt it pounding in the left side of his chest. “Left.”
Judging from the way the linebacker wrenched up the sleeve of his polo shirt, Bobby fully expected the disposable razor to cut his biceps to shreds, but big Tiny's touch was surprisingly deft, even gentle, so much so that Bobby began to worry about more than the dentist chair or the ghoulish array of tools on a nearby counter. Those particular worries only increased when the man began to massage a floral-scented ointment into his arm.
But before Bobby was able to clear his throat and say something macho like “How ‘bout those Cubs?” Tiny had pushed away his stool and turned to his counter full of instruments. “Relax,” he said. “It'll take me just a sec to prepare the design transfer.”
“Sure.” The word came out an octave below Bobby's normal range. He hardly recognized his own voice.
“New in town?” Tiny asked over his massive shoulder.
“Yeah.” He thought that might be the right time to offer his résumé. West Point. Army intelligence. The Secret Fucking Service. Then, just in case he wimped out, he could claim it was for national security reasons.
With the same gentle touch, Tiny applied a small paper to his arm and after a minute pulled it away. “That's how she'll look,” he said. “Okay?”
Bobby glanced down at the purplish-blue outline of a heart, small as a baby's fist on his biceps. “This is permanent,” he said. “Right?”
“Right.”
What the hell. It was probably the closest he'd ever get to wearing his heart on his sleeve, he figured. “Go for it.”
“All riiight! One more sec while I fix my inks.”
The funny thing was, Bobby thought now as he continued down the drive toward his wife's ferocious glare, he had started to relax in the chair while Tiny putzed around with bottles and a harmless-looking little machine no bigger than a staple gun. Even when the man swiveled his stool around and swerved toward him with the implement, Bobby hadn't batted an eye.
“Ever had a tetanus shot?” Tiny asked, pressing the cold metal to his arm.
“Yeah.”
“Well, this doesn't bite any worse than that. Except it keeps biting, if you know what I mean. You'll get used to it after a minute, man.”
Jesus. Bobby had never passed out in his life, but the next thing he knew Tiny was waving an ammonia capsule under his nose and looking blurred and worried and pretty goddamned amused all at the same time.
“You wanna do this some other time, man?” Tiny asked.
“No. Finish it.”
So now, of course, he was going to have to explain the bandage on his left arm to the woman who looked like she'd just as soon sink her teeth into his right one.
“Where have you been?” Angela practically spit the words at Bobby as he climbed out of the car. Her tone softened a little when she asked, “What's wrong with your arm?”
“I snagged it on a … uh … thing at the supermarket.”
“What kind of thing?”
He babbled something about side doors and faulty copper weather stripping and suing the hell out of Save Mart. She didn't believe him for a second. Bobby was a rotten liar, probably because he was such an innately honest man.
“Let me see it,” she said, reaching to peel the square bandage back. “You should probably get a tetanus booster, Bobby. Did you need stitches?”
“Don't worry about it, Ange.” He jerked his arm out of her grasp. “It's just a scratch. It took a while to stop the bleeding, is all. Just leave it the hell alone.” He slapped away her insistent hand, then stalked to the back of the little station wagon and opened the hatch.
It irked her no end that he seemed perturbed with her when it was she who had every legitimate reason to be pissed at him for abandoning her so long.
“Well, I wish you had called me. I really could have used a little backup with this bridge club deal.”
“What do you mean?”
She dragged back a hank of hair. “I mean Mrs. Riordan's guests aren't the three harmless little old ladies we were expecting. Your friend Bootsie showed up with a man.”
“What do you mean, a man?”
“Jesus, Bobby.” He could be so dense sometimes for such a smart guy. “I mean a man. One of those tall people who wear pants and carry their change in their pockets. A man!”
The cop look claimed his face. “Did you pat him down?”
Angela's hands flailed helplessly. “Pat him down? Are you kidding me? What was I supposed to say? ‘Excuse me, sir. I'm the maid, and I'd like to check your clothes and body cavities for dirty rags or unauthorized cleaning products’? Anyway, I'm pretty sure Doug and Mike gave him a once-over before he came inside.”
“Pretty sure?” He swore with such ferocity that she actually took a step back. “Where is this guy right now?” he demanded.
“In the living room playing cards. I've been keeping an eye on him, Bobby, for heaven's sake. But when I saw the car turn into the driveway, I wanted to give you a heads-up.”
She hadn't screwed up that royally. Angela knew procedure inside and out, and she also knew that following it under these circumstances would blow her cover. She had allowed a stranger into the Riordan house without double-checking for weapons after Doug's initial check, but what else could she have done? She'd then left her protectee alone with him. Well, for all intents and purposes alone. What good would Bootsie and the other old lady be if Professor Gerald Gerrard pulled a knife or a gun?
“I'm sorry,” she said to Bobby's back because he was already sprinting toward the rear door of the house. “Shit,” she muttered then, hurrying in his wake.
When she caught up with him in the hallway just beyond the kitchen door, Bobby had already removed his gun from his ankle holster and had it shoved in his belt at the small of his back. He motioned her close and whispered, “You go on in. Ask if they want cookies or drinks or something. Be sure to see how this guy reacts, and yell if anything seems hinky.”
“You don't actually think—”
He cut her off. “Just do it, Ange.”
Angela knew the difference between a direct order and a suggestion, and since Bobby was the senior agent here, she did exactly as she was told.
Only Bootsie wanted a refill on the sherry. The professor wasn't drinking anything and seemed not the least bit unsettled by Angela's presence, even though he did put his cards down several times in order to wipe his spectacles. Adele was comfortable enough. Mrs. Riordan, actually, was the only one who struck Angela as uncomfortable. There was an air of urgency in the way she raked in the cards, as if she were playing in a burning building and couldn't leave until the game was done.
“He seemed okay,” she told Bobby in the hallway. “Mrs. Riordan seems on edge, but I'm guessing it's just because she doesn't like surprises, and—trust me—the professor was a big one.�
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“I'll wait here until it breaks up,” he said. “Maybe you want to bring the groceries in from the car.”
Maybe she wanted to be on a beach in Mexico, Angela thought churlishly, except Rod wasn't on the coast, but inland in Chihuahua or wherever it was that they filmed all those westerns.
“Call me if you need me,” she said. “I'll be in the kitchen baking bran muffins and cleaning my gun.”
Daisy didn't slam the door exactly, but she closed it with authority on her departing guests before peering out the sidelight to watch that fool Muriel link her arm through the professor's and dangle from his sleeve like a wretched Kewpie doll the man had just won at a fair. She might have muttered an oath if it hadn't been for the wraithlike presence of Robert, looming in the hallway behind her. Even as she ignored him, she wondered how he was enjoying his job of keeping her safe from idiots and fools.
It was three-thirty. She'd missed her nap, and it was too late now to even think about closing her eyes, because that would guarantee her wakefulness throughout the night. If there was any good news, it was that she wouldn't have to play bridge again for an entire week. Norma's sinus difficulties would surely be cured by then, so she'd never have to see Gerald Gerrard again.
As Daisy turned toward the staircase, Robert's shadow edged back into the hallway. She was half tempted to ask to borrow his gun. Whether she wanted to use it on Muriel or herself, she hadn't quite decided yet.
Hauling a man into her house! Plopping him down right under her very nose! Muriel must have lost the only marble she had left.
With ten minutes remaining before she had to take her muffins out of the oven, Angela sat at the kitchen table, paging through one of Mrs. Riordan's cookbooks, sinking deeper into a slough of domestic depression. What she wanted to do was run out to a KFC and bring back dinner in a couple of buckets, but somehow she didn't think the president's mother would be terribly pleased with extra-crispy chicken, coleslaw, and a pool of gravy in a crater of mashed potatoes.
After the card players left and Mrs. Riordan went upstairs, Bobby had gone out to the surveillance trailer to begin the process of checking out Gerald DuMaurier Gerrard. Angela was sure the man would come out squeaky clean. If he'd wanted to kill Crazy Daisy badly enough, he probably wouldn't have hesitated at taking out Adele and Bootsie with her. He'd had the opportunity, after all.
She wondered if Bobby would report her for dereliction of duty. He'd done it before with colleagues who'd messed up. Let him. In fact, if Doug canned her within the next half hour, she wouldn't have to cook dinner. That alone would be a paltry price to pay for a ticket back to L.A.
She returned to her uninspired perusal of the cookbook, waiting for Bobby's return. When he walked into the kitchen, he didn't look like a man who'd just ratted on his partner.
“Did you find out anything?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Seems our professor is just what he claims to be. I talked to the dean at the college. They hired him away from Harvard with a nice salary and the title of professor emeritus, which basically means that Gerrard gets to give one or two lectures a semester while lending his name to boost the image of their faculty. He's the real deal.”
Thank God. Angela wanted to moan with relief in light of her screwup. “That's good,” she said, avoiding Bobby's gaze so he couldn't read her concern. The man might not be able to express his own emotions, but he could be pretty astute when it came to others.
“Hey,” he said softly, settling into the chair across from hers. “I didn't say anything to Doug, if that's what you're thinking. You did the best you could under the circumstances, Ange. Undercover's different from a regular detail. Don't worry about it, okay?”
“Okay.” She sighed. Undercover, in her case, was just another name for scut work. “So, what do you want for dinner?”
He smiled. “What was that dish you used to make with hamburger and tomatoes and those little green things?”
“What little green things?”
“I don't remember what they're called. They looked like little green rabbit droppings.”
“I never in my life cooked anything that remotely resembled rabbit droppings.”
“Yes, you did. They came in a little jar—”
“Capers,” she exclaimed, suddenly realizing what he meant.
“That's it.”
“They don't look like rabbit droppings.”
“Yes, they do.” He laughed. “Little perfect pellets from little green bunnies.”
“I thought you liked my cooking,” she said a bit indignantly, rising from her chair and stalking toward the refrigerator while Bobby kind of chortled behind her.
“I do like your cooking, babe. That dish was one of my favorites. What was it called?”
“Rabbit-poop stew,” she said, her voice muffled slightly because her head was halfway inside the refrigerator. “I'm so glad you liked it.”
“Seriously, Ange. What was it?”
“Picadillo,” she said through clenched teeth.
“Yeah. That was it. Make that.”
“I can't.” Angela tossed a bunch of broccoli onto the counter, then put her head back into the fridge. “I don't have any ground beef. Or capers. Or rabbit turds, as you so clearly and fondly remember.”
“Ange.”
She didn't hear him get up or cross the room, but suddenly he was right behind her, one hand on each of her hips. She could almost feel a hot blue ribbon of electricity arcing through her pelvis. When she righted herself, his hands came away, but Bobby didn't step back. Angela could feel the warmth of his belt buckle on her spine and his breath on her neck.
“Angela,” he said softly.
It was one of the first things about him that she'd loved, the sound of her name just brushed with the remnants of his Texas accent. She'd never really liked her name until Bobby spoke it almost three years ago. She stared straight ahead into the brightly lit shelving, reading the expiration date on the carton of eggs rather than allow herself to entertain the notion suddenly sizzling in her brain.
Bobby Holland had the world's best hands. Such competent hands that knew instinctively where to go and what to do, and just exactly when. He was her husband. She was his wife. What would be so wrong if—
Now he was gathering back the hair at the nape of her neck, his touch so gentle it was comparable to a breeze. “Why don't you just sit, Ange, and let me do the cooking tonight?”
That brought her back to her senses as well as any splash of ice cold water could have. “I don't think Mrs. Riordan mentions baloney sandwiches and potato chips anywhere in her little blue book.” She reached into the meat keeper for the steaks she'd bought the day before and tossed them onto the counter next to the broccoli.
“I'll do it, Ange. How hard can it be to cook broccoli?”
“Too hard for somebody who was eating Cheerios for dinner until I came along,” she said, nudging her hip into his to throw him off balance just enough for her to elude him on her way to the sink, where she turned on the cold water and let it flow over her wrists just to make sure her temperature didn't shoot up again.
“Let me help you, then,” he said. “Just tell me what to do.”
Stop being such a devastating combination of sexy and sweet. Quit trying to reel me in with those warm, wonderful hands, only to make me regret it when you turn back into a cold brick wall. Leave me alone!
“How about going upstairs and asking Mrs. Riordan if she wants to have her dinner in the dining room again tonight?”
“Easy enough,” he said, already on his way to the door. “Be right back.”
“Take your time,” Angela answered with a sigh. Take an hour. A couple years.
He had only been gone a few minutes when there was a knock on the back door. Angela put down the stalk of broccoli she was rinsing and called, “Come in,” fully expecting to see Doug's gray brush cut and glum face in the doorway. To her surprise, however, the face that appeared there was framed by soft chestn
ut hair and was very familiar, not to mention quite pretty.
“Hi, Angela. Remember me?”
Oh, yeah. She hadn't seen Tricia Yates since they'd gone through nine arduous weeks of training together at the federal facility in Georgia. Maybe “together” was the wrong word. They'd been fierce competitors from day one, and Tricia, with her almost boyish, lithely muscled, long-legged body, had bested Angela in every category but one. Firearms. Angela used to pretend she was firing her weapon right between the agile brunette's big gooey brown eyes.
“Tricia,” she said now with what she considered the proper amount of good cheer as she reached for a towel to dry her dishpan hands. “I thought you were working in Miami.” Angela extended her hand, then watched the agent grimace slightly as she shook her still-damp fingers.
“I was in Miami, but I've wanted protective duty for a long time, so they pulled me in on this,” she said. “How's it going?”
“Fine. We haven't had any problems on the inside.”
Tricia cocked her head, exposing a little diamond stud in her ear. Suddenly Angela remembered that the woman's navel sported a small gold ring, and she remembered Tricia's nickname during training—the Man-Eater. Back then she'd been the Secret Service equivalent of a hungry Hollywood starlet.
“No, I meant how's it going with you?” Tricia said. “With you and Bobby Holland. I heard you were separated.”
“Not at the moment,” Angela replied, almost sweetly.
“Yeah. That's what he told me when he came out to the trailer. Oh. That reminds me.” She reached into the pocket of the navy blazer that matched her short, tight little navy skirt. “Bobby wanted a copy of Gerald Gerrard's dossier as soon as it came through on the fax. This is all we've got so far.” She handed a single sheet of paper to Angela.
“Thanks. I'll see that he gets it.” When Angela noticed the way Tricia was scoping out the door that led to the hallway where Bobby had disappeared, she added, “You probably shouldn't stay here much longer, just in case Mrs. Riordan comes in.”
“Right.” The agent's eyes snapped back to Angela's face. “Well, it's good seeing you again, Angela. Maybe we can do a run together or something while we're here. You do still run, don't you?”
