by Anne Stuart
“And you care so much about your children?” Coltrane asked.
“Not particularly. Rachel-Ann was all I needed, but Edith wanted more. It didn’t matter one way or the other to me, and it kept her off my back and occupied. I’m not a man to let sentiment get in my way. I thought you knew me better than that, Coltrane. Why would you think I’d give a damn about someone I happened to father? I wasn’t around when they were growing up, they aren’t the slightest bit like me.”
“Then why do you care about Rachel-Ann?” He wasn’t sure if he wanted to hear the answer. Whether Meyer was fooling himself as he tried to fool everyone else.
Meyer shrugged. “Just goes to show that blood ties are bullshit. She’s my perfect soul mate and always has been.”
“Soul mate?” Coltrane repeated in disbelief. “Have you been reading cheesy romance novels? I’m not even sure if you have a soul, much less a soul mate.”
“Watch it, Coltrane. Don’t get in my way,” he growled. “I’ll crush you. I’ve crushed stronger men than you in the past, and I don’t have any qualms about doing it to you. I’ll bury you.”
“How many people have you buried, Meyer?”
Meyer didn’t even blink. “Don’t call my bluff, Coltrane. You have no idea what I’m capable of.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that. I’ve never underestimated you, boss.”
Meyer stared at him for a long, thoughtful moment. “That’s why I chose you, Coltrane,” he said finally. “Deep down, you’re just like me. Ruthless, cold, practical. You can get the job done, no matter what the price, and you don’t let the petty laws of little men get in the way. Am I right?”
Was he? Was he just like Meyer, deep inside? Just as cold and ruthless, ready to sacrifice anyone for his quest? Anyone like Jilly Meyer or even his own sister? It was uncomfortably close to the truth.
“Right, boss,” he said easily, giving no hint at the disgust Meyer’s words had engendered.
“And you can do one more thing for me, can’t you? I’ll make it worth your while, you know I will. At this point you’re the only one I can trust. My son’s a weakling, but at least he didn’t use to be troubled with ridiculous scruples. God knows who he thinks he is to pass judgment on me, the little bastard. He seems to have developed a conscience of late, but I’m sure I can acquit you of providing a moral influence.”
“I think we can safely agree on that.”
“So I’m getting out. Not just out of my marriage. Out of the business, out of the country. This has been in the works for quite a while—a wise man always keeps an escape hatch ready. I’ve done all I can do here, accomplished what I wanted to. Now’s the time to retire, while I’m still a young man.”
You’re sixty-three, Meyer, Coltrane thought. I wouldn’t call that particularly young. But he didn’t say a word.
“I don’t trust many people,” Meyer continued. “But I trust you, Coltrane. Can I count on you?”
Meyer didn’t trust anybody, including him, but he was adept at convincing people they mattered. If they had something to offer, that is. Coltrane wondered why he never bothered with Jilly, who had more to offer than all of them put together.
He had to stop thinking about her. After today he wasn’t going to see her again. He just needed to put a few thousand miles between them, and he’d forget all about her.
“You can count on me, Jackson,” Coltrane said. “What do you want me to do?”
“You can bring me Rachel-Ann.”
It was dawn when he returned to La Casa. The sun was coming up over the lawn, fingers of pale lavender reaching out to touch the facade of the house. Neither Dean nor Rachel-Ann had returned home, and Jilly must still be completely zonked out, thank God.
He started up the steps to the terrace, then at the last minute changed his mind and turned around. He’d be gone from this place soon enough—he wanted to wander around one last time and see if anything jogged his memory. He had no idea how young he’d been when he first lived here—probably only two or three. He didn’t remember his mother being pregnant, and Rachel-Ann was only a few years younger than he was. Maybe he just hadn’t noticed his mother’s rounded belly.
He walked down the gravel path, past the towering palm trees and tangled undergrowth. It really was odd to see vegetation grow wild like this in Los Angeles, where yard workers were plentiful and affordable. But then, Jilly paid the bills, and as far as he could tell she never ventured off the patio. There was something she didn’t like about the grounds.
Then he remembered her reaction to his mention of the pool. Something about the pool bothered her, enough so that she let the landscaping grow up around it and practically obscure it, enough so that in the land where the climate cried out for a swimming pool, she kept it unusable. He wondered why.
It was simple enough to find. Even with the overgrown pathways the smell of rotting algae was easy to trace. He could see the roof of the pool house, half caved in, before he came to the actual pool itself.
It was surprisingly small, only about half full of dank, black water and some kind of plant life, and it looked as if it had been abandoned decades ago. The tile around the edges was cracked and discolored, and weeds grew up in the cracks. The diving board was long gone, the steps leading down into the pool were rusted, with a rung missing. It looked derelict and depressing. It was no wonder Jilly kept her distance. That the entire family kept their distance.
He walked forward, staring down into the murky depths. Even though there was only about three feet of water in the pool he couldn’t see the bottom, which was probably a good thing. From the smell of the place there might very well be some decomposing wildlife in there, as well.
A shiver ran across his backbone. Maybe as a going-away present he’d pay for a bulldozer to come in and demolish this cesspit. It was the least he could do for Jilly—after destroying her family he could give her that much.
The wind had picked up, swirling dust into the air, and Coltrane grimaced. He’d be glad to be out of this town. There was usually nothing he liked more than a good storm, but the wind in L.A. made his hackles rise.
There were a few lights still on in the shadowy interior of La Casa, and he switched them off as he went, plunging the place into a predawn gloom. It suited his mood. He climbed the stairs slowly, silently. Jilly wouldn’t be likely to wake up, but he didn’t want to risk it. He’d walked away from her once. There was a limit to how goddamn noble he could be.
He didn’t even glance at her door as he walked past, determined to put temptation out of his head. Now that he’d made up his mind not to touch her again, not to hurt her, he wanted her more than ever. Must be human nature. The more off-limits something was, the more you wanted it.
Which brought him back to Meyer, and his stomach knotted in disgust. Meyer wanted Rachel-Ann, his own daughter, and it wasn’t to act as hostess for him while he lived the life of a wealthy fugitive.
And Coltrane, far too much like his nemesis, wanted Jilly, when to touch her would destroy her.
Meyer was right—they were too damned much alike. Ruthless, amoral, out for their own agenda. It didn’t matter that Coltrane wanted truth and justice and Meyer wanted money and power. They still shared the same merciless approach to getting what they wanted. And an hour ago Coltrane had looked into Meyer’s eyes and seen himself reflected.
He was getting the hell out of La Casa, out of Los Angeles, before he lost whatever trace of decency he had left in him. He had no idea where he was heading, only that he had to get out of there.
But he had to finish off Meyer before he went. Or Rachel-Ann would never be safe.
It was no longer justice, it was no longer revenge. It was much simpler than that. His arrival in L.A. had set too many things in motion. He needed to salvage what he could.
He packed, throwing his clothes in his suitcase with a total lack of respect for their price tags or labels. The sun was just coming up over the edge of the trees when he heard the noise. A soft,
slightly shuffling sound, and his blood froze.
The ghosts, he thought, knowing that he didn’t believe in them. Knowing they were coming, anyway. Moving slowly, almost silently, only the faint, whispery sound announcing their approach.
He was too damned tired to think straight. He could hear a clicking sound—click click, click click—and he moved toward the French doors instinctively. Rachel-Ann wasn’t even there—she was safe from them. And Jilly couldn’t even see them—they’d wish her no harm.
But he deserved any kind of punishment he could get, in this world or the next, and he waited as the door slowly opened into the room, ready to face the walking dead.
Roofus leapt toward him in canine delight, his paws clicking on the marble floor. Behind him came Jilly, moving gingerly on her bandaged feet. Coltrane looked at the two of them and almost wished they’d been ghosts.
Jilly halted just inside the room. The pain pills must have been weaker than he thought, because she looked wide-awake. She’d changed out of her bloodstained clothes into what she probably thought wasn’t provocative. On most people a baggy T-shirt and jeans wouldn’t have been arousing. Right now all Jilly had to do was breathe and he was aroused.
Her hair was hanging loose, down around her hips in a dark curtain, and her face was pale in the murky light of dawn. She looked at the suitcase on the bed, then glanced up at him. “You’re leaving?” she said in an even voice.
“I told you I was.”
“Why? Don’t you want to cause more trouble?”
“What I love most about you, Jillian Meyer, is your sweet nature,” he said wryly. “I’m getting out before I make things worse. I’ve got a couple of things to take care of and then you never have to see me again. Count your blessings.”
“I don’t want you to go,” she said flatly. “I need your help.”
He looked at her, not bothering to hide his shock. “You need my help?” he echoed in disbelief. “Strong, powerful Jillian, ruler of the universe, protector of the weak, defender of the family, needs the help of a snake like me? I thought you could do everything.”
She limped across the room, over to the bed and sat down beside his suitcase. There wasn’t any other place to sit in the derelict room, and her feet had to be hurting. But seeing her sitting on his bed unnerved him.
“I can’t do everything,” she said in a quiet voice. “I can’t fix things, I can’t save things, no matter how hard I try. I can’t make my father love Dean more, I can’t make him love Rachel-Ann less. Hell, I can’t make him love me at all.” Her faint grin was self-mocking. “Not that I care, mind you. Jackson’s very good at being charming when he wants something, but I learned years ago just how little that counts for. And that’s why he hates me. I’m the one person who sees him for what he is, and nothing he does can fool me.”
“I wouldn’t say you’re the one person,” Coltrane said. “I’m not particularly deluded about him.”
“And you still work for him? Then you’re worse than I thought,” she said.
“Impossible. You think I’m pond scum. Not unlike the stuff that’s growing over your abandoned swimming pool.” He said it on purpose, just to test her reaction.
She shuddered visibly. “I don’t…like the swimming pool,” she said in a tight voice. “I don’t like looking at it, I don’t like talking about it. Something horrible happened there, long ago, and it infects the place.”
“Something horrible happened to you?”
“No. Not really. It’s something else, something that happened a long time ago, something ugly and cruel. I don’t know what it was, and I don’t want to know. I just don’t like it.”
“Okay,” he said evenly. “So I’m not pond scum. But I know what your father’s capable of and I still work for him. What does that make me?”
“A snake,” she said without hesitation. “But not without redemption. I can’t let him win. I can’t let him hurt Rachel-Ann any more. I don’t know what he’s done to her over the years, but it sickens me, the way he looks at her, the way he touches her.”
“Do you think he’s had sex with her? Do you think he abused her as a child?” It was astonishing how casual, almost clinical he sounded.
“I don’t know. Maybe not. But even if he didn’t commit physical incest he’s committed emotional incest over the years. And she has to break free of him.”
“Isn’t that her problem? You spend your life trying to fix everything, trying to save everyone. You even think I’m salvageable which, trust me, I’m not. What about you?”
“Me?” She laughed, entirely without humor. “I don’t think I’m perfect. I know what a fucked-up, codependent mess I am. I’m stubborn, judgmental, interfering, afraid of everything under the sun, unresponsive, bad-tempered—”
“What a litany of crimes!” he said softly.
“Don’t tell me you disagree. You’ve said half of those things yourself.”
“I never said you were unresponsive.”
He shouldn’t have said that. Not with her sitting on his bed, alone in the huge old house. Not when he was going to leave.
She hesitated, and he wondered if she’d ignore it. “No,” she said finally. “That was my husband. And that’s another story. We’re trying to save Rachel-Ann.”
“You’re trying to save Rachel-Ann, Jilly. I’m trying to get the hell out of here.”
“And you’d just turn her over to him? Just let it happen?” she said in disbelief.
She’d managed to startle him with her insight. “What makes you think I’d turn her over to him?”
“Isn’t that what you’re doing, by leaving? She needs our help, Coltrane! I thought you cared about her.”
“He’s not going to get her. And stop being so melodramatic—it’s not your style. What makes you think I care about her?”
“I don’t know. Instinct, I guess. Are you in love with her?”
“Jesus Christ, Jillian!” he exploded softly. “What kind of dream world are you living in? Do I look like the kind of man who walks around suffering from unrequited love? Do I look like the kind of man to harbor a secret passion?”
Her grin was wry. “No, I suppose not. Clearly you don’t give a shit about anyone in this household.”
“And you care too much.”
“Maybe I do,” she said calmly.
“And maybe you should start putting a little bit of that prodigious energy toward yourself. Have you ever done anything in your entire life that was just for you and not for your damned family or this ruined old house?”
“Of course I have.”
“Name one thing. Even better, prove it. Tell me one thing you want, something that’s selfish, greedy and absolutely bad for you. Something everyone will scold you for and shake their heads and say ‘She’s just as bad as the rest of her family.’ I dare you to. Something weak and indulgent, like an ice-cream sundae. Want do you want, Jilly?”
She looked at him across the dawn-swept room, her brown eyes calm and clear. “You,” she said.
21
Coltrane was looking at her as if she’d suddenly grown two heads. Jilly couldn’t blame him. If there’d been a mirror nearby she would have checked herself. Surely that word hadn’t come from her mouth?
After a moment he recovered himself. “They must have given you more pain medication than I thought,” he drawled.
“They didn’t give me any painkillers, you idiot. They sent some home with me in case I needed them but I didn’t take any.”
“Then why did you zonk out in the car like that?”
The man was dense, and she was tired of being subtle. “Because I was exhausted. I haven’t slept in days, mostly thanks to you, and I was too damned tired to stay awake. Besides, I was expecting you to put me to bed and then take advantage of me. You’ve been trying to since you met me, and there I was, completely vulnerable. And what do you do? Give me a chaste kiss and leave.” She let her thorough disgust come through in her voice.
“You r
eally do think I’m a shit, don’t you?”
“Yes. No. I’m not sure,” she said honestly.
“If you feel that way about me why in God’s name do you want to go to bed with me?” He’d moved closer to the bed, watching her with an obvious mixture of irritation and interest.
“Because you’re wicked and selfish and bad to the bone, and I’m tired of being good and noble. You’ve been sniffing around me like I’m a bitch in heat—I’m offering myself to you.” She tried to sound infinitely practical. Considering that he was looming over her in the shadowed room, and she had the unfortunate habit of reacting to him like an adolescent in the throes of first passion, she was doing a good job. He made her heart pound, her stomach knot, her breasts ache and her skin prickle, all without touching her. And she really, really wanted him to touch her.
“Charmingly put. And what if my motives are entirely evil? What if I’ve been trying to get you into bed for nefarious purposes that have nothing to do with you?”
She blinked. “I assumed that was the case. I don’t tend to drive men wild with passion—you must have some ulterior motive.”
“And you want to sleep with me, anyway?” He’d come up to the edge of the bed, and she looked at him, keeping her gaze calm and steady. The only problem was that her lips were trembling when she tried to smile, and she certainly didn’t want to frown at him.
He’d changed since he’d brought her back. He was wearing an old pair of jeans and a T-shirt, not his usual style. He looked a lot less civilized without his linen and cotton and Armani. A lot more dangerous.
And a lot more gorgeous.
“Ice-cream sundaes aren’t good for you, either. They make you fat, they raise your cholesterol and clog your arteries. That doesn’t mean people don’t have them.” She heard their prosaic conversation almost from a distance. As if she were one of the ghosts, listening, watching, removed from it all.
“So you want me to sleep with you. Knowing I’m leaving, you want a nice, old-fashioned one-night stand? Not your style, Jilly. Why?”
