Hot Rocks

by Nora Roberts

  warming cover off a plate, revealing an omelette and a side of bacon. “Um . . .” She held out the leather folder to Max, waited while he signed the bill. “Hope you enjoy your breakfast, Mr. Gannon.”

  She walked out, casting one last look over her shoulder before she shut the door.

  “Go ahead,” Vince invited. “No point letting those eggs get cold. They make a nice omelette here.”

  “What kind of break-in was it? Burglary?”

  “Looked that way. Why was Miss Tavish with you last night?”

  Max sat, decided to pour the coffee. “Socializing. I asked her to have a drink with me. She agreed. I hoped to be able to extend that to dinner, and since she was agreeable to that after we had a drink—down in the lounge here—we went into the dining room.”

  “You always make dates with women when you buy presents for your mother?”

  “If it worked that well, I’d be buying my mama a lot more presents.” Max lifted his cup, drank and met Vince’s eyes over the rim. “Laine’s a very attractive, very interesting woman. I wanted to see her, socially. I asked. I’m sorry she’s got trouble.”

  “Somebody got in and out of her place during the time she was in town here, socializing with you.”

  “Yeah, I get that.” Max decided he might as well eat, and forked up some omelette. “So you’re wondering if I go around hitting on pretty women in shops, then setting them up for a burglary while I charm them over dinner. That’s a stretch, Chief, since I never set eyes on Laine before yesterday, don’t—as yet—know her residence or if she’s got something worth stealing in it. Be smarter, wouldn’t it, to hit the shop? She’s got a lot of nice merchandise in it.”

  Vince simply watched Max eat, said nothing. “Couple of good thick glasses over there,” Max said after a moment, “if you want some of this coffee after all.”

  “I’ll pass. What’s your business in Angel’s Gap, Mr. Gannon?”

  “I’m with Reliance Insurance, and I’m here doing some fieldwork.”

  “What kind of fieldwork?”

  “Chief Burger, you can contact Aaron Slaker, CEO of Reliance, and verify my association with the company. He’s based in New York. But I’m not at liberty to discuss the details of my work without my client’s permission.”

  “That doesn’t sound like insurance work to me.”

  “There’s all kinds of insurance.” Max opened a little jar of strawberry jam and spread some on a triangle of toast.

  “You got identification?”

  “Sure.” Max rose, walked over to the dresser and took his driver’s license out of his wallet. He passed it to Vince, then took his seat again.

  “You don’t sound like New York City.”

  “Just can’t drum the Georgia out of the boy.” He was just irritated enough to exaggerate his drawl and make it a challenge. “I don’t steal, Chief. I just wanted to have dinner with a pretty woman. You go ahead and call Slaker.”

  Vince dropped the license beside Max’s plate. “I’ll do that.” He started for the door, turned with his hand on the knob. “How long do you plan to be in town, Mr. Gannon?”

  “Till the job’s done.” He scooped up more egg. “Chief? You were right. They do a really good omelette here.”

  Even when the door shut behind Vince, Max sat and ate. And considered. A cop being a cop, Burger would run him, and the run would turn up his four years on the force. And his investigator’s license. Small towns being small towns, that little tidbit would get back to Laine before too long.

  He’d decide how to play that when it had to be played. Meanwhile there was the matter of the break-in. The timing was just a little too good to be serendipity. And it told him he wasn’t the only one who thought the very attractive Miss Tavish had something to hide.

  It was all a matter of who was going to find it first.

  “Don’t worry about anything,” Jenny assured Laine. “Angie and I can handle things here. Are you sure you don’t want to just close the store for the day? Vince said your place is a wreck. I could come over and help you out.”

  Laine switched the phone to her other ear, scanning her home office and thinking about the very pregnant Jenny dragging chairs and tables into place. “No, but thanks. I’d feel better knowing you and Angie have the shop. There’s a shipment coming in this morning, a pretty big one from the auction in Baltimore.”

  And, damn it, she wanted to be there, getting her hands on all those lovely things. Admiring them, cataloguing them, arranging them. A good deal of the enjoyment came from setting up new stock in her place, and the rest came from watching it walk out the door again.

  “I need you to log in the new stock, Jen. I’ve already done the pricing, that’s in the file. There’s a Clarice Cliff lotus jug, with a tulip design. You want to call Mrs. Gunt and let her know we have it. The price we agreed on is seven hundred, but she’ll want to negotiate. Six seventy-five is firm. Okay?”

  “Gotcha.”

  “Oh, and—”

  “Laine, relax. It’s not my first day on the job. I’ll take care of things here, and if anything comes up I can’t handle, I’ll call you.”

  “I know.” Absently, Laine reached down to pet the dog, who was all but glued to her side. “Too much on my mind.”

  “Small wonder. I hate the thought of you handling that mess on your own. You sure you don’t want me to come? I could bop over at lunchtime. Angie can handle the shop for an hour. I’ll bring you something to eat. Something loaded with fat and wasted calories.”

  Angie could handle the shop, Laine considered. She was good and getting better. But Laine knew herself. She’d get more done if she worked alone without conversation or distraction.

  “That’s okay. I’ll be all right once I get started. I’ll probably be in this afternoon.”

  “Take a nap instead.”

  “Maybe. I’ll talk to you later.” When she hung up, Laine stuck the little portable phone in the back pocket of her baggy jeans. She knew herself well enough to be sure she’d find half a dozen reasons to call the shop during the day. Might as well keep a phone handy.

  But for now, she needed to focus on the matter at hand.

  “ ‘Hide the pooch,’ ” she murmured. Since the only pooch she had was Henry, she had to assume Willy had been delirious. Whatever he’d come to tell her, to ask of her, to give her, hadn’t been done. He’d thought someone was after him, and unless he’d changed his ways, which was highly unlikely, he’d probably been right.

  A cop, skip tracer, a partner in crime who hadn’t liked the cut? Any or all of the above was a possibility. But the state of her house told her the last option was the most likely.

  Now whoever had been looking for him was looking at her.

  She could tell Vince . . . what? Absolutely nothing. Everything she’d built here was dug into the foundation that she was Laine Tavish, a nice, ordinary woman with a nice, ordinary life with nice, ordinary parents who ran a barbecue place in New Mexico.

  Elaine O’Hara, daughter of Big Jack of the charming and wily ways—and yard-long yellow sheet—didn’t fit into the pretty, pastoral landscape of Angel’s Gap. Nobody was going to come into Elaine O’Hara’s place to buy a tea-pot or a piecrust table.

  Jack O’Hara’s daughter couldn’t be trusted.

  Hell, she didn’t trust Jack O’Hara’s daughter herself. Big Jack’s daughter was the type who had drinks in a bar with a strange man and ended up knocking said man on his excellent ass with a steamy, soul-deep kiss. Jack’s daughter took big, bad chances that had big, bad consequences.

  Laine Tavish lived normal, thought things through and didn’t make waves.

  She’d let the O’Hara out for one brief evening, and look what it had gotten her. An exciting, sexy interlude, sure, and a hell of a mess at the end of it.

  “It just goes to show,” she murmured to Henry, who demonstrated his accord by thumping his tail.

  Time to put things back in order. She wasn’t giving up who she wa
s, what she’d accomplished, what she planned to accomplish, because some second-rate thief believed she had part of his last take.

  Had to be second-rate, she thought as she gathered up the loose stuffing from the once pretty silk throw pillows she’d picked out for the George II daybed. Uncle Willy never traveled in the big leagues. And neither, despite all his talk, all his dreams, had Big Jack.

  So, they’d trashed her place, come up empty and took easily fenced items in lieu.

  That, Laine thought, would be that.

  Of course, they’d probably left prints all over the damn place. She rolled her eyes, sat on the floor and started stacking scattered paperwork. Dim bulbs were a specialty when Uncle Willy was involved in a job. It was likely whoever’d broken in, searched, stolen, would have a record. Vince would trace that, identify them, and it was well within the realm of possibility that they’d get picked up.

  It was also in that realm that they’d be stupid enough to tell the cops why they broke in. If that came down, she’d claim mistaken identity.

  She’d be shocked, outraged, baffled. Acting the part—whatever part was necessary—was second nature. There was enough of Big Jack in her veins that running a con wouldn’t be a stretch of her skills.

  What was she doing now, Laine Tavish of Angel’s Gap, but running a lifetime con?

  Because the thought depressed her, she pushed it aside and immersed herself in refiling her paperwork. Immersed enough that she nearly jumped straight off the floor when she heard the knock on the front door.

  Henry bolted out of his mid-morning snooze and sent out a furious spate of throaty, threatening barks—even as he slunk behind Laine and tried to hide his bulk in the crook of her arm.

  “My big, brave hero.” She nuzzled him. “It’s probably the window guy. No eating the window guy, right?”

  As a testament to his great love and devotion, Henry went with her. He made growling noises and stayed one safe pace behind.

  She was wary enough herself after the break-in to peek out the window before unlocking the door. Her brain, and her blood, did a little snap and sizzle when she saw Max.

  Instinctively she looked down, in disgust, at her oldest jeans, her bare feet, the ancient gray sweatshirt. She’d yanked her hair back in a short tail that morning and hadn’t bothered with makeup.

  “Not exactly the look I wanted to present to the man I considered getting naked with at the first reasonable opportunity,” she said to Henry. “But what’re you gonna do?”

  She pulled open the door and ordered herself to be casual. “Max. This is a surprise. How’d you find me?”

  “I asked. You okay? I heard about . . .” He trailed off, his gaze tracking down to her knees. “Henry? Well, that’s about the homeliest dog I’ve ever seen.” A big grin split his face when he said it, and it was hard to take offense as he crouched down to dog level and aimed the grin at the dog.

  “Hey, big guy, how’s it going?”

  Most, in Laine’s experience, were at least initially intimidated by the dog. He was big, he was ugly, and when he was growling in his throat, he sounded dangerous. But Max was already holding a hand out, offering it for a sniff. “That’s some bad face you’ve got there, Henry.”

  Obviously torn between terror and delight, Henry inched his snout forward, took some testing whiffs. His tail whapped the back of Laine’s knees before he collapsed, rolled and exposed his belly for a rub.

  “He has no pride,” Laine stated.

  “Doesn’t need any.” Max became the newest love of Henry’s life by giving the soft belly a vigorous rub. “Nothing like a dog, is there?”

  First there’d been lust, she thought, naturally enough. Then interest and several layers of attraction. She’d been prepared—or had been trying to prepare—to shuffle all those impulses aside and be sensible.

  Now, seeing him with her dog, she felt the warming around the heart that signaled—uh-oh—personal affection. Add that to lust and attraction and a woman, even a sensible woman, was sunk. “No, there really isn’t.”

  “Always had a dog at home. Can’t keep one in New York, not the way I travel around. Doesn’t seem right.” His hand slid up to rub Henry’s throat and send the dog into ecstasy.

  Laine very nearly moaned.

  “That’s the downside of city living for me,” Max added. “How’d they get around him?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  He gave Henry a last thumping pat, then straightened. “I heard about the break-in. Big dog like this should’ve given them some trouble.”

  Down, girl, Laine ordered herself. “Afraid not. One, he was shut in the mudroom. That’s his place when I’m out. And second, well . . .” She looked down at Henry, who was slavishly licking Max’s hand. “He doesn’t exactly have a warrior’s heart.”

  “You okay?”

  “As good as it gets, I suppose, the morning after you come home and find somebody’s trashed your house and stolen your property.”

  “You’re pretty secluded back here. I don’t guess anyone saw anything.”

  “I doubt it. Vince, the police chief, will ask, but I’m the only house back on this lane.”

  “Yeah, I met the chief. Another reason I came by was to make sure you didn’t think I asked you to dinner to get you out of the house so this could happen.”

  “Well, of course not. Why would . . .” She followed the dots. “Vince. I hope he didn’t make you uncomfortable.”

  “It’s his job. And now I see I’ve put the same suspicion in your head.”

  “No, not . . .” But she was trying it on. “Not really. It’s just been a very strange week. I think I’ve dealt with Vince twice on a professional level since I moved here. Now it’s been twice in a matter of days. He must’ve come by your hotel room this morning. I’m sorry.”

  “Just routine. But coming home and finding your house has been burgled isn’t.” He reached out, touched her cheek. “I was worried about you.”

  The warmth pumped up a few degrees. She told herself it wasn’t a good fit—Willy Young and Max Gannon in league. And that if Max was of the ilk, she’d know.

  Like, she believed, recognized like.

  “I’m okay. Jenny and Angie will work the shop today while I put the house back into shape.” She gestured toward the living room. “I’ve barely made a dent. Good thing I like to shop, because that’ll be stage two.”

  He stepped around her, looking into the room himself.

  It could be taken for a spate of vandalism accompanying a burglary. But to Max’s eyes it looked like what it was: a fast, nasty search. And if they’d gotten what they were after, he didn’t think Laine would be calmly clearing up the debris and talking about shopping.

  Nobody was that cool.

  On the tail of that thought, he imagined her coming home alone, in the dark, and opening her house to this. Small wonder she had shadows under her eyes and the pale look of a woman who’d spent a sleepless night.

  “They did a number on you,” he murmured.

  “Not the usual thing in the Gap. When I lived in Philadelphia, I worked with a woman who went home one night, found her apartment broken into. They cleaned her out and spray-painted obscenities on the walls.”

  He looked back at her. “So it could be worse?”

  “It can always be worse. Listen, I’ve put the kitchen back together and made a quick morning run to the store so there’s coffee. You want?”

  “I always want.” He walked to her. She looked so fresh.

  All that bright hair pulled back from that pretty face, her eyes only bluer with the shadows haunting them. She smelled like soap, just soap. The innocent charm of freckles was sprinkled over her nose.

  “Laine, I’m not looking to get in your way, but . . . let me help you.”

  “Help me what?”

  He wasn’t sure, but he knew he meant it, that the offer was unqualified. He looked at her, and he wanted to help. “For a start, I can help you put your house back together.”r />
  “You don’t have to do that. You must have work—”

  “Let me help.” He cut off her protest simply by taking her hand. “I’ve got time, and the fact is, if I went on my way, I’d worry about you and I’d never get anything done anyway.”

  “That’s awfully sweet.” And she knew she was a goner. “That’s