by Linda Howard
Going inside, Eric nodded to the clerk, a skinny guy with a receding chin who had been watching through the window as the construction worker gassed up, and went straight to the coffee counter at the back of the store, where the motor oil, gas additives, and windshield washing liquid were shelved. The clerk looked faintly alarmed, and edged back behind the checkout counter.
Eric caught a glimpse of himself in the shiny surface of the coffee machines, and grimaced. No wonder the clerk looked a little worried. Not only did he need a shave, but he hadn’t even dragged his fingers through his hair before leaving Jaclyn’s. He hadn’t tucked his shirttail in—after all, he was going home to shower and change clothes, so he hadn’t seen the need—but he’d pulled on his jacket to cover his weapon. All in all, he looked as if he’d just had a mug shot taken.
He pulled a tall cup from the stack and dumped in two sugars and one creamer, then filled the cup to the brim. As he was fitting a black lid on the cup he heard a vehicle with a loud muffler pull up to the store. The engine didn’t cut off.
Shit. What were the odds? What were the fucking odds?
Instinctively he ducked down, hiding himself from whoever came through the door. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe the driver was having trouble getting the car started, maybe the battery was low, so he didn’t want to take the chance of cutting off the engine and not being able to get it started again.
He heard the chime over the door as it opened, and momentarily the sound of the running motor was even louder. It was nothing, he thought. Even an idiot would notice the car parked practically in front of the door, and realize someone else was in here with the clerk. And only a cop would hear a car left running outside and immediately think Quick getaway. His Spidey sense had short-circuited after a hot night of sex, that was all. Traffic outside was picking up as dawn came closer, not a good time for a robbery, any fool knew that.
It was noth—
Crash!
Something was knocked over, the harsh sound exploding in the small building along with yells and swearing, then a hoarse voice yelling, “Gimme the money, motherfucker, or I’ll blow your fuckin’ head off!”
Fuck. It was something.
Damn it, he knew it, he’d known it as soon as the car pulled up outside. His weapon was in his hand, and he didn’t remember drawing it. It was just there, because instinctively he’d known that car meant trouble. Just as instinctively, he’d noticed the clerk’s position, and could tell the robber was between him and the clerk. He could fire, but if he missed he was likely to kill the clerk.
And if he discharged his weapon, there’d be forms to fill out for the next month, even if he didn’t hit the fucking robber, and if he did hit him he’d be relegated to desk duty while an internal investigation took place.
Just as quickly as he’d drawn his weapon, he shoved it back into his holster, grabbed a can of motor oil from the shelf in front of him, raised it, and whipped it toward the robber’s head with every ounce of strength in his throwing arm. The guy wore a black hooded sweatshirt, with the hood pulled up over his head—had to be hot as hell—but even with the hood to cushion the impact, the can hit his head with a sound like a cantaloupe being dropped on the floor. The robber went down as if he’d been pole-axed—or, in this case, motor-oiled.
Eric drew his weapon again and bolted for the door, hitting it with his shoulder and skidding to a stop beside the getaway car, his weapon leveled through the open window at the driver, who turned out to be a girl wearing a tiny green halter and a pair of Daisy Dukes. “Police!” he barked, identifying himself. “Turn off the engine and put your hands behind your head.”
She stared at the impressive barrel of his service weapon, aimed right at her. Her lower lip began quivering, her face screwed up, and she began bawling. “He made me!” she squalled.
“Yeah, right,” Eric muttered. His damn coffee was getting cold, he needed a shower, it was obvious he hadn’t been home, which was going to give everyone something to talk about, and here he was, stuck with Bonnie and Clyde. He took a quick glance over his shoulder; he could see the clerk had come out from behind the counter and was talking on the phone. The robber was still down for the count.
“I said turn off the engine!”
Still sniveling, she did.
“Okay, now get out of the car. We’re going inside with your boyfriend.”
“He’s not my boyfriend!” She got out of the car, and all the time he was cuffing her she kept babbling about how she didn’t even know the guy, he’d gotten in her car at a red light, he’d held a gun on her and made her drive here, she hadn’t known what he was doing—
“And that’s why you didn’t just drive off when he came inside?” Eric asked drily as he ushered her inside where he could keep an eye on her. The clerk jerked around, evidently not as reassured as he should have been by the girl being cuffed, his eyes widening at the sight of the weapon in Eric’s hand. “Police,” Eric said, briefly flashing his badge. Hell, why couldn’t the moron put three and three together, and come up with “cop”?
The guy on the ground was moaning, beginning to stir. He’d have a headache from hell, probably a concussion, but Eric used his extra set of cuffs to secure him anyway. He could already hear sirens; good response time, he thought. But then, Hopewell wasn’t Atlanta, and the night shift didn’t have a whole lot to occupy its time.
Less than thirty seconds later two squad cars slid into the parking lot, lights flashing and sirens blaring. Eric stared down at his two prisoners and the freaked-out clerk, and heaved a sigh. All he’d wanted was a damn cup of coffee.
Chapter Five
JACLYN DETERMINEDLY DID NOT THINK ABOUT ERIC Wilder as she finished getting ready—not much, anyway. Completely dismissing him was impossible, partly because she had pink beard burns on her breasts and a similar tender spot on her jaw. She soothed the irritated places with aloe gel, carefully covered the place on her jaw with concealer, and wondered why physical intimacy with a man was such a contact sport that a woman almost needed a helmet and protective padding. And he hadn’t even been rough. In fact, he’d been remarkably tender, considering the hungry way they’d gone at each other. Still, she should at least have bitten him or something, just to even the score.
Except she’d never been a biter. Or a screamer. Or much of anything, really. She was just an ordinary woman, cautious by nature, without an ounce of drama queen in her. Her dad was enough of a drama queen, thank you very much, plus her job brought her in daily contact with enough drama to keep Broadway stocked with characters for ten years. That was maybe the biggest part of her job: keeping her head when everything was going to hell in a handbasket, and everyone else was having hysterical fits. An events planner had to be an expert at finding alternatives, making things work, and doing what had to be done.
“Caution” was practically her middle name. For goodness sake, before she bought her first car ten years ago, she’d researched resale values and repair rates for six months before taking the plunge—and it had taken Madelyn twice that long, a couple of years ago, to convince her that driving matching Jaguars would be a great business statement. She’d been right, of course; in the Buckhead area, status symbols mattered, and the Jaguars said that Premier was the events planning firm to hire if you wanted to make a splash. They’d bought the Jaguars used, and Jaclyn had approached the venture with her fingers crossed and her checkbook wincing. Two years later she had to admit that Madelyn had been right, overall, but both of their temperamental cars had seen time in repair shops.
It was so not like her to throw caution to the wind and jump into bed with a man she’d just met. She hadn’t even slept with her ex until they’d been engaged. She’d been with her mother as Madelyn picked up the pieces of her heart after divorcing her dad, and subsequently watched Jacky make one bad choice after another when choosing who would join in the Stepmother Parade. To date, he’d been married a total of five times, divorced five times, and was probably actively looking for num
ber six.
Being involved, even peripherally, in personal train wrecks like that had made her doubly cautious when it came to men, and even then her own marriage had had the life span of a soap bubble. How could she have been so wrong? She’d thought she and Steve would be married for a lifetime, and instead the attraction between them had fizzled in an embarrassingly short time. Now she doubted her own judgment when it came to men, to the point that the last time she’d had sex she’d … oh hell, she’d been married. She hadn’t been with anyone since then. She wasn’t carrying a torch for Steve. She wasn’t a prude; at least, she didn’t think she was. She’d been busy. Very busy.
There were a lot of reasons why she hadn’t connected with any other men, most of them valid. She’d been careful. She’d been smart. It wasn’t like her to be either impulsive or reckless.
Jumping into bed with Eric wasn’t like her, but then it obviously was, since she had done it, and that was what alarmed her. Was she more like her father than she’d thought? The absolute last thing in the world she wanted was to become a slave to every whim that passed through her head, the way Jacky was. To him, want was the same as need, and he had few brakes on his behavior.
She loved him—it was difficult not to love Jacky, because he wasn’t at all mean-hearted and didn’t intend to hurt people. He was charming, full of life, and completely irresponsible and focused on himself. He did hurt people, of course, but he didn’t see it because he was always moving on to the next party, the next wife. Jaclyn’s relationship with him was sporadic, and had been as long as she could remember; her security had come from Madelyn, who was the core constant in her life, who had stayed married to Jacky far longer than she should have and fought to maintain the same home and some semblance of stability in Jaclyn’s life. Madelyn had finally thrown in the towel and filed for divorce when Jaclyn was thirteen, when Jacky’s irresponsibility with money had threatened to drag them all down.
Jaclyn made a face in the mirror as she deftly twisted her heavy hair into a knot and shoved some long, stabilizing pins into place. Of course, Jacky being the half-assed father he was, and the divorce, had marked her. Everyone was marked by their experiences in life, so she wasn’t special. She couldn’t even say she’d had any unusually traumatic events. But being Jacky’s daughter had definitely made her wary and cautious, because he was exactly what she didn’t want to be. Maybe she wouldn’t have been like him anyway; maybe the wariness and caution were inborn, which made it possible for her to see him, love him, and not be bamboozled by him. Who knew?
All of which had nothing to do with the fact that she’d just had the first one-night stand of her life, and in retrospect, she didn’t like the idea that she’d lost either her self-control or her mind. What would she do if he really did call her next week? Did she want a relationship? Was that even still on the board, or had she placed herself in the call-for-sex category?
Oh hell, of course she wanted to at least try for a real relationship with him. She’d never before had such an instant, compelling reaction to a man, and even though it scared the stuffing out of her, she wanted to see where it went. And if he thought she had been slotted into the call-for-sex category, well, she’d find out soon enough, and the sooner the better.
She took two deep breaths, squared her shoulders, then glanced at the clock and groaned. Introspection was a time-hog.
She grabbed a banana from the fruit bowl in the kitchen, poured the rest of the coffee into a to-go cup, and turned off all the appliances and lights before letting herself into the garage, locking the door behind her. A motion light in the garage came on, lighting her way to the car. Juggling her bag, coffee, and banana, she got into the car and locked the door before punching the garage door opener. Yep, “careful” was her middle name.
She backed smoothly out of the garage, and rain danced on her windshield. She braked, groaning in dismay. She was pretty sure rain hadn’t been forecast, but here it was. No bride liked rain on her wedding day. Thankfully today’s wedding wasn’t an outside event … and that Madelyn was handling it. Still, was it an omen that it was raining on the first wedding of the week?
She hesitated for a moment, thinking of going back inside and changing her kitten-heeled sandals for something more substantial, but another glance at the time had her resolutely lowering the garage door and backing the rest of the way into the street. If her feet got wet, she’d live with it. She didn’t have time to change.
It was still dark, the streetlights reflecting on the wet streets as she wound her way out of the residential area to the main road that would take her to Buckhead. Hopewell didn’t have any industry; there were businesses, office buildings, doctors and dentists and restaurants, dry cleaners, things of that sort, but no honest-to-God industry involving factories. Hopewell was newer than Buckhead, didn’t have the older stately mansions; instead, it had a sizable number of new stately mansions—not just the big McMansions, but actual estates, with large grounds, privacy walls, and gates at the end of the driveways.
Hopewell also had sections of what Jaclyn would term strictly middle-class housing, neighborhoods established before land prices soared. She had grown up in one of those houses; Madelyn had sold it only when Premier began taking up the lion’s share of her time, and she couldn’t handle the yard work and upkeep. Jaclyn hadn’t said anything to her mother, but privately she had cried on the day the sale was final. The neat brick house had been her home, even if she had long since moved out. Now the town house was home in that it was where she went at the end of the day; it was where she relaxed, felt safe and comfortable. But deep in her heart it was just a town house, and if she had to move it wouldn’t bother her one whit other than the aggravation of packing and unpacking.
Home was family, and Jaclyn wanted her own. How twisted was she, that she couldn’t trust herself enough to let down her guard and actually let a man get emotionally close to her, when what she wanted most out of life required that closeness? Maybe she should consider therapy. Or maybe, because she didn’t have her head in the sand and understood perfectly all the psychology behind her excessive caution, she should just kick herself in the ass and get on with life. Not only would that be faster, but she wouldn’t have to pay herself.
Premier was housed in a stand-alone brick building that had once been a dentist’s office, but she and Madelyn had liked it because the parking lot was spacious, in very good shape, and the landscaping was mature. They’d bought it in their fourth year of business, remodeling the interior to give it the look of a comfortable, upscale home that just happened to have two private offices. They had considered leasing space in a professional building, which would give them active security, but the cost had forced them to look at stand-alone buildings. Now they were both very happy with their choice, because the building was theirs and it actively reflected the sense of being solidly established, and of prestige, that the anonymous face of a professional building simply couldn’t provide.
Because they were four women working alone, sometimes late at night—or early in the morning, as was the case today—they’d tried to make the building as safe as possible. There were sturdy doors and locks, monitored security, camera surveillance on the entrances, and the casement windows were all protected by some very thorny shrubbery. They had never had even a hint of trouble. The area was wonderful and, really, what idiot would break into an event planner establishment? Everything they did was paid for by check or credit card, so at any given time the only cash on the premises would be what they had in their wallets. A vending machine would be a better bet for a thief.
She pulled into her designated parking slot right beside the back door, and Madelyn’s Jag pulled in not five seconds later. A pink umbrella bloomed like a giant exotic flower, then Madelyn got out of the car under its protective cap. Jaclyn mirrored her mother’s actions, though her own umbrella was an ordinary black one. The rain wasn’t heavy, but she didn’t want to start the day with wet clothes and limp hair.
&nbs
p; “I have protein smoothies,” Madelyn said, then she leaned back inside to fetch the promised drinks.
“What flavor?”
“Don’t look a gift smoothie in the mouth. Vanilla. I was out of strawberries.”
“I have a banana I’ll split with you. We can slice it into the smoothies, run them through the blender again.”
“Deal.”
She couldn’t juggle everything at once, so Jaclyn got her briefcase and left the banana and coffee in the car for a second trip, then hurried to unlock the door. The security system began beeping and she set her briefcase on the small demilune table stationed in the short hallway, then coded in the number to disarm the system. Madelyn moved past her, carefully maneuvering the umbrella, her own briefcase, and the two smoothies.
Five minutes later they were sitting at the conference table with their jazzed-up smoothies, going over the wedding for that evening, making certain no detail had been forgotten. Madelyn had turned on the small television in the corner and they both breathed a sigh of relief when the local weather showed clearing by lunch. “Thank God,” drawled Peach Reynolds as she breezed into the conference room in time to hear the weather prediction. She automatically started making a pot of coffee; she was one of those who drank coffee almost nonstop all day. “And while I’m giving thanks to the Good Lord, I’ll throw in my heartfelt gratitude for air-conditioning, because the humidity is going to be unbearable. Are y’all drinking those god-awful smoothies again?”
Peach—whose real name was Georgia, of course—scorned anything that even remotely resembled healthy eating, evidenced by the chocolate-filled Krispy Kreme doughnut she’d brought in. She had a cloud of bright red hair, slanted green eyes, and fifteen or twenty extra pounds that put her just the other side of lush. It was evidently a body type that was very popular with men, because she never lacked for dates, though it was fair to say her exuberant personality also had something to do with that. Madelyn was more low-key, but barely. The two of them together could work a room in a way that would turn any politician green with envy.
