She heard a sound at the door and swung around as two deep voices merged. There was a knock.
"Come in," she called, nervous now.
A uniformed police officer came in with Nick, and a tall young man.
"This is Officer Jennings," Nick introduced the policeman, "and Tim Mathews. Tim has been living on your front porch," he added, "but he's found new quarters. Starting now, he's going to live in your office, instead, and I notice that he's brought his coffeepot with him."
"We've met," Tabby murmured, trying not to laugh.
"Did you know that Tabitha's an anthropologist?"
"Yes. It's interesting, but I'd never be able to be one." Mathews grinned. "I'm not sure I could spell it."
"We're like ancient detectives," Tabby told him. "We dig up mysteries from the past and try to solve them."
"I do the same in the present," Mathews said. "Sorry I had to give you the hard sell, but news is sacred to me."
"Invasion of privacy isn't," she guessed.
He chuckled. "Sorry. No."
"Tell that to a lawyer," Officer Jennings said with a smile.
"We might as well get comfortable," Nick said. He frowned at Tabby. "I thought you said your ex-intended was coming."
"He'll be along," she said.
"It had better be soon, or he'll blow my stakeout."
"Blow what steak out?" Daniel asked as he peered around the door. "Am I late?"
"Yes, but don't let that concern you," Nick said darkly.
"Oh, don't worry, I won't," Daniel said imperturbably. "Do you want this locked?" he asked as he closed the door.
"Please," Nick agreed.
"Did you bring the information I wanted?" Daniel asked Tabby.
"I'm sorry," she said quickly. "I left it on the table by the door."
"Oh, bother," Daniel grumbled. "Well, I'll stop by later. I need those notes."
"She had other things on her mind," Nick said in her defense. "I'm sure you agree that clearing her name is more important than a few notes."
Daniel cleared his throat. "Well, certainly..."
"Have a seat," Nick invited. He settled back into an easy chair, with the reporter perched beside Tabby on a straight-backed chair and Daniel taking up a place by the closet door.
"Isn't this entrapment?" Daniel asked the policeman.
Officer Jennings cocked an eyebrow. "I wouldn't say so. Mr. Reed would know more about that than I would."
"Because he worked for the FBI, I gather," Daniel said irritably.
Jennings shook his head. "Why, no. Because he's the one with the law degree."
Daniel studied the blond man with new interest. "You never said you had a law degree," he murmured. "From what school?"
"Harvard," Nick said with magnificent disdain.
"Oh." Daniel was at a loss for words. He glanced toward Tabby. "You do look washed-out, Tabitha. You need a rest."
"I couldn't agree more,” she said closing her eyes. “It’s been the longest week of my life.”
“Don’t worry, dear girl, we’ll clear your name,” Daniel said, smiling. “Then you might reconsider that ring I offered you.”
She didn’t answer. She smiled, her eyes still closed, so that she missed the flash of anger on Nick’s face.
“Better settle down and be quiet,” Officer Jennings said. “We may be in for a long evening.”
“I hope not,” Tabby sighed. “I want it to be over.”
“Don’t we all,” Daniel murmured, but no one heard him.
Chapter Eight
An hour went by, and then another, with nothing happening. The men began to fidget, and Tabby's heartbeat ran wild. What if Nick was wrong? If no thief appeared, her career would be over.
"This is absurd," Daniel grumbled. "We're wasting time!"
"You're welcome to leave, Dr. Myers," Nick said carelessly. "We'll sweat it out without you."
Daniel looked around and grimaced. "Well, I suppose I could wait a little longer," he added when he saw Tabby's unease.
He settled back, his long legs crossed. Nick stared at Tabby, trying to balance his rocking emotions while he discovered that going back to Houston was less appealing than ever before.
A noise at the door made everyone sit up. Nick put a finger to his lips and eased back into the shadows as the others did.
The door was locked, but someone was working the lock. The noise was loud in the silence, and there was another noise with it, an odd one that was more a grunt.
A minute later, the door opened. It was too dark to see anything. A chair was bumped, and there was a thud, and then the tinkle of glass as a container on Tabby's desk was knocked over.
"Now!" Nick said.
He turned on the lights and the .35 millimeter camera flashed. And everyone stared breathlessly at the image the camera had captured.
There, on the desk, clutching a small cheap plaster statuette that Tabby had put out as bait, was a small hairy biped. Pal, the primate, with a bandage on one hand.
"My God!" Daniel exclaimed. "It's the bloody monkey!"
"Pal!" Tabby gasped. "But he picked the lock, did you see?"
"Yes. And odds are that he's taken his ill-gotten gains to the biology lab and stashed them. Let's go."
They left Pal in the room and followed Nick down the hall to the biology lab. A thorough search of the premises revealed the two missing artifacts and several other more modern things in a large jar that Flannery used to keep large grass plumes in.
"The lipstick I couldn't find," Tabby laughed, picking it up. "My mirror. I thought it had fallen out of my purse. Daniel, here's the pipe stem you thought you lost." She handed it to him.
"What a story this is going to make," Tim chuckled as he snapped photos of the group.
"Shall we take up a collection for Dr. Flannery?" Daniel mused. "He's going to faint when he hears about this. And if the dean doesn't cancel his research grant, I'm a monkey myself."
"You'll make sure the story gets to the wire services, won't you, so that Tabby's cleared?" Nick asked.
"Oh, sure," Tim told them. "She's the best part of the story. Pretty teacher victimized by intelligent ape. I can see the headlines now. We'll have him in love with her and taking personal objects as love tokens."
"Oh, my God," Tabby groaned.
"Now, now, Doc, don't take it like that. How about giving us a quote? That way," he added with an irrepressible grin, "I won't have to set up camp on your front porch again."
"Anything but that! Yes, I'll give you a quote!"
"His hand is bandaged," Nick pointed out. "That was what cinched the case. There was a tiny bit of blood on the fur I found on Tabby's desk. I took the fur to the lab at the FBI building, and the lab tech identified them as primate fur and blood. In fact," he added with an amused look at the reporter, "he gave me the size, weight and approximate age of the monkey. All from that one sample."
"Amazing, isn't it, what they can do?" Mathews agreed. "I watched a program on public TV about those lab detectives. They're really something, especially now with the DNA matching."
"A lot of that still isn't admissible in court," Nick said quietly. "But it will come. Eventually a perpetrator who commits a crime won't have a legal leg to stand on if there's a DNA match."
"Don't you believe it," Mathews replied cynically. "There'll be a way to get around it, right up to copping a sample of an innocent man's blood and leaving it at the scene."
"You reporters," Nick began irritably.
"Don't blame me," Mathews returned, placing a hand on his heart. “I would not for all the world shatter your illusions, sir, but mankind is rotten to the core for the most part."
"Not all of it," Tabby broke in. “There are some good people."
"You have to dig pretty hard to find them, though. If you'll give me that quote, Doc, I'll get out of your hair."
Tabby gave him one, hoping it would be the end of the oddest chapter in the history of her life. Pal's unmasking was enough to take
her mind off her own problems, for a while at least. She was grateful for that.
"I'll drop by in the morning and get those notes," Daniel told Tabby, "on my way to school. I, uh, could give you a lift if you want me to."
Tabby smiled. "Thanks, Daniel."
He smiled back. "I'm glad you were cleared." He glanced toward Nick, who was talking to the reporter and Officer Jennings. "I thought for a while there I might be a suspect. You know, back in the early seventies, I marched in an antiwar rally. I didn't put that on my record for fear that they might think me a radical."
"Nothing would be less likely than that," Tabby told him. "And maybe you weren't a suspect," she hedged to spare his feelings.
"All the same, isn't it a good thing this is over?"
"Yes. A good thing." Because it meant that Nick would go back to Houston and she could pick up the threads of her own life. What a dismal fate, she thought silently.
Nick walked her out to her car after the reporter and the policeman had gone. Daniel was locking up after them.
"You could ride home with me," he suggested. "Daniel can bring you back in the morning to pick up your car. I heard him suggest giving you a lift," he added when she frowned.
"I don't think..."
"Good. Don't." He steered her toward his own car, his jaw firmly set. "It's late and this isn't a safe city at night. I'll feel better if you're with me."
What in the world made him think she was safe with him, after the ease with which he'd seduced her? she thought hysterically. But she didn't say it.
They rode home in a tense silence. Nick didn't pull into her driveway when they reached the neighborhood. He parked the car in his own driveway. It didn't alarm Tabby at first. Not until he locked the car and pulled her along with him toward his front door.
"I won't go in there with you," she said stubbornly.
"Yes, you will," he replied quietly, his dark eyes holding hers as he inserted his key into the lock and opened the door. “We have some serious talking to do."
“We can talk tomorrow...!"
"I'm leaving in the morning."
"Oh."
She went with him, her head bent down, feeling empty and forlorn and totally vulnerable.
"Sit down." He motioned her to the sofa. He took off his jacket and his tie, unbuttoning the top buttons of his shirt. “Will you have something to drink?"
"No. Thank you."
"I mean coffee," he said defensively.
"Oh. Well... Yes, then."
He put the drip coffeemaker on and then came back to sit across from her in an armchair. "Don't look so shattered, Tabby," he said gently. "You've been completely cleared. I'm sure the dean will have his apologies ready in the morning." He smiled faintly. "Along with Dr. Flannery."
"It wasn't really Dr. Flannery's fault. I feel guilty that you had to pry into my colleagues' pasts to clear me, when it wasn't really necessary."
"We didn't know it wasn't necessary. Besides, I haven't told you what I found out. I won't tell anyone else, either," he said curtly. "I'm a private detective. The operative word is 'private.'"
“I know that. But I seem to have made a lot of trouble for everyone," she confided.
He studied her quietly, wondering at how easily she fit into his private life, how she seemed to belong. He was being fanciful, he told himself. He had no intention of marrying her. He wanted her to understand that.
He clasped his hands together between his knees. "I wanted to apologize, again, for what happened. And to tell you that if there are...complications...I want to be told."
"I'll tell you. But there's no need, because I'm not going to get rid of a child just to suit you, Nick, no matter how inconvenient he might be."
He cursed sharply and vividly. "I haven't said...!"
She stood up. "You needn't say anything." Her face colored as she stared at him, remembering how his body had felt against hers.
“You can't handle it, can you, Tabby?" he asked quietly. "Having sex with me is some kind of mortal sin. I suppose having it happen spontaneously and almost publicly like that is what hurts the most."
"Nick..."
He moved close and took her by the shoulders. "You're incredibly naive for a woman your age," he said. He searched her eyes. “And what I hate most is that I didn't even take the time to teach you all the pleasures of lovemaking."
"Please, don't," she said huskily.
"Just this, darling," he said softly, his eyes dropping to her mouth. He felt an anguish of desire as his head bent. "Just a few kisses, little one..." he breathed into her mouth.
He kissed her deeply, his arms bending her body up into the hard curve of his, holding her gently but firmly. She struggled at first, but the need to experience him again was betraying her will.
His lean hands slid down her back to her hips and tugged rhythmically, moving her against the growing arousal of his body.
She caught her breath and he felt it in her kiss. His mouth opened, his tongue probing deeply, insistently. She gave in to him and began to make odd, high-pitched little noises. She relaxed, letting him deepen the intimacy of the embrace. Her hands caught at his shirt and clung.
His head spun. She was his. She couldn't resist him any more than he could resist her.
"You're sweet, Tabby," he whispered. "You're sweeter than honey."
She was breathing unsteadily already. His hands slid around her and up to cup her breasts, caress them into hard passion. She felt him unfastening hooks and buttons, but all she could think of was how to get closer to him. She loved him. Nothing else seemed to matter, not even the fear and uncertainty in the back of her mind.
He touched bare, warm, soft skin, and she arched back. His mouth found her, caressed her, made her shiver with her need.
It was too late to draw back. He knew it almost at once, and when he looked into her misty, half-closed eyes, he knew that she needed him as much as he needed her. He was helpless against his desire for her.
This, then, was passion, Tabby thought dizzily as he picked her up and carried her upstairs. This helpless surrender that heard no reason, knew no resistance, was what kept women and men bound together despite their differences. She wanted him as she'd never dreamed she could, despite the trauma of their first time. She loved him so! And this would be the last time...
She heard a door open, heard it close. She felt the bedspread under her bare back, felt his hands removing fabric, caressing, seducing.
He was whispering to her, things that made her body burn, her mind sing. She felt him touching her in all the ways he'd touched her in the park. Except that this time, he held back. He aroused her to fever pitch and then pulled her gently to him, and held her, shivering, until she calmed. Then he began all over again, light caresses, light touches, his lips on her body, his mouth suckling hungrily at her breasts while his hands teased her into a state of insane desire.
The lights were out. For an instant she was sorry, because she wanted to see it, to see him, to watch as they blended into one human being in their feverish rush toward intimacy.
But there wasn't enough light to make out his face as he came over her, into her, and she clutched at his hips, crying out as he eased completely down into stark possession.
He poised there, barely breathing, feeling her in every cell of his body. She moved, crying out, pleading, but his lean hand stilled her hips.
"No," he choked. "No. Lie still."
"Please!"
"Trust me," he whispered shakily. "Tabby, lie still and let me... calm down. I want it to last all night, sweetheart," he said into her open mouth. “I want to take you up and bring you down until you can't bear it, and then I want to explode with you into a thousand lights. Help me, little one. Lie still. Yes. Still."
He calmed her. She cried helplessly, but she obeyed. She felt the tension drain out of him. Then he began yet again, his mouth tracing, touching, cherishing, his hands teasing her back into ecstasy. He didn't move, or lift, and she could feel the
depth of his possession, the strength and power of it growing by the second. She grew frightened of its power and whispered it involuntarily.
"Shh," he whispered softly. "You're safe. I won't hurt you. I'll never...hurt you...baby!"
He began to move, ever so tenderly, his body a caress in itself as he kissed her and rocked above her in a rhythm that carried her up and over the edge, long before he was ready.
He felt her convulse and begin to cry, great tearing bursts of sound that mirrored the anguished completion he gave to her. He hadn't wanted to bring it this quickly, because he wasn't ready. But it was all right. She was capable of endless satisfaction. He smiled as he let her rest for a few seconds, turned away for a moment, and then began to arouse her again.
It was a long, long time later when his movements became rough and powerful and urgent. She heard the tenor of his breathing change, felt his body coil and begin to vibrate with its terrible tension. When the pleasure took him, he lifted almost completely off the bed, and she saw his head go back as she felt and heard him experience ecstasy.
He cried out her name in throbbing gasps, his body shuddering so violently that she was almost afraid for him. Then he finally pulled slowly away from her and fell onto his back, and the convulsions were still there, only worse.
"At least," he whispered when he stopped shaking, "this time I managed to protect you."
She only dimly realized what he'd done, what he meant. But she was too tired to analyze it. She closed her eyes and slept, exhausted and drained from pleasure.
When she awoke, it was to light coming in the windows. It took several seconds before she realized where she was. She sat up, feeling sore and uneasy, the sheet falling to her bare breasts. She was nude, and very uncomfortable. She realized why at the same time Nick came out of the bathroom with a towel around his hips.
He paused beside the bed, and he didn't smile. His dark eyes went to her breasts and lingered there.
She couldn't manage to pull the sheet back up. Just looking at him made her sing inside. Her eyes went down his perfectly made body, over his hairy chest to his flat, muscular stomach where the towel caught.
Books By Diana Palmer Page 121
