Whose Lie Is It Anyway?

by Abby Gaines

  At last he figured he wasn’t going to get any more out of her. He rose to leave, looking forward to getting out of the trailer, away from its shabby furnishings, its art-cluttered walls and the dominating presence of Maggie Stephens. With luck, he wouldn’t have to speak to her again.

  “Thank you for your cooperation, ma’am,” he said, his politeness edged with sarcasm.

  The glint of mischief in her green eyes told him she knew just how he felt. “My pleasure, Officer,” she said.

  And as he headed down the path behind Andy, she called, “Lucas?”

  Crook stopped. She really thought he looked like a Lucas? The only Lucas he’d known had been the coolest kid in high school. Unable to help himself, he grinned at her. “Nope.”

  She stood in the doorway with her arms folded, a defensive stance. Her next words were diffident, almost shy. “You told your colleague to show some respect for my work. Does that mean you like it?”

  He could have said yes, in the hope it would make the woman more inclined to help him. But generally he didn’t lie, even to suspects. He had a hunch that a couple of small lies would put him on a road he didn’t want to go down, and he might not find the way back again.

  “No, I didn’t exactly like them,” he said. “Mind you, I didn’t dislike them, either. I just…didn’t get them.”

  He wasn’t sure if her brusque nod indicated she’d taken offence or not. Not his problem. He raised a hand in farewell. By the time he and Slater were in the car, she’d disappeared inside.

  “That woman is nuts.” Slater didn’t hold back his contempt.

  Crook, who ordinarily had no problem ascribing varying degrees of lunacy to the people he met through his work, merely said, “She didn’t give us much to go on.”

  That he hadn’t given the ready agreement Slater was looking for irritated Crook. Maggie may not be nuts, but she was a criminal who in all likelihood had raised her daughter to be an even bigger criminal. He shouldn’t defend her.

  He flicked his turn signal as they pulled out of the trailer park onto the highway.

  “So, Slater, is Holly Stephens innocent? What does your gut tell you?” It was a question Crook liked to ask his colleagues. Some agents made their best decisions on the promptings of their instincts. Others, like Crook, did everything by the book, followed due process, to figure out answers.

  It hadn’t always been that way. At one time, he’d employed what he considered to be an inspired blend of instinct and logic. But in recent years he’d become a process man. The process worked, but just sometimes he liked to hear what other agents’ guts told them.

  Slater shook his head. “Too soon to call.”

  For the briefest moment, Crook had a sense this case wasn’t going to be as straightforward as it looked. Could it be his long-dormant instinct stirring at last? He dismissed the thought. The only thing his visit with Maggie Stephens had stirred was his hormones.

  MAGGIE PACED THE CONFINES of her living room, unsettled by the intrusion of the two FBI agents. By one of them, at least.

  How could she be thinking about a man when her daughter was in trouble? Even if that daughter believed Maggie had forfeited the right to worry about her long ago. What kind of a mother was she?

  She knew the answer to that one. The kind of mother who always put her causes ahead of her family, and who’d probably do it all again, given the chance. With the possible exception of marrying Andrew Stephens.

  After Andrew had left, she’d been thankful never to experience that powerful pull toward a man again. Until today. She couldn’t explain—couldn’t believe—the attraction she’d felt for the FBI agent.

  And for no obvious reason. He wasn’t good-looking—entirely average—and he was the sort of man who would despise everything she stood for. Life had taught Maggie long ago that respect was a scarce commodity. She sure wasn’t going to find it in a man like Crook.

  Though he’d surprised her as he left. Instead of lying to her and saying he liked the paintings, he’d given her an honest answer.

  Maggie shook off the distraction posed by the man she’d met today. She couldn’t be attracted to him after those accusations he’d made against Holly. Holly. The oldest of Maggie’s children, but the one she always thought of as her baby, would be devastated to have her integrity questioned. She wouldn’t welcome the phone call Maggie was determined to make. Maggie was under no illusion that she could comfort Holly, or help her. But she had to try.

  She braced herself for the sneer of the park manager, who considered his tenants several rungs below him, and headed to the office to use the phone.

  JARED FOUND HIMSELF unreasonably excited about his meeting with Holly on Sunday night. It was because the goal he’d worked toward for nearly twenty years was so close, he told himself.

  It had nothing to do with Holly’s razor-sharp analytical mind, which presented such an intriguing contrast to the sensuous, almost mysterious curve of her mouth. And definitely nothing to do with the hottest kiss in history, the one they’d shared Friday night.

  They both knew he wouldn’t do it again.

  Tonight Holly opened the door promptly in response to his knock.

  “Had a good day?” After an initial nanosecond scan of her person, Jared kept his gaze firmly on her face. The red leather miniskirt revealed gorgeous legs that Friday’s jeans had only hinted at. Teamed with a white cotton blouse with off-the-shoulder sleeves, the overall look was one of sultry innocence. Very sexy.

  But he knew she wouldn’t appreciate his appreciation. And after his performance the other night, the last thing he needed was to get their first evening together—working together—off to an unpropitious start.

  “A long day.” She stifled a yawn—hardly the usual reaction Jared encountered when he arrived at a woman’s home—as she led the way into the apartment.

  Jared crossed to the office area. Apart from a small pile of papers on the desk, there was no evidence of three days spent on his deals. Could it be that Holly wasn’t as thorough as everyone said?

  He soon found it was more a matter of her being meticulously tidy. She’d gone over a ton of information since he’d last seen her, and she ran through his options with a thoroughness that lifted the hairs on the back of his neck.

  Was there any hope at all that she might not figure out what he was up to?

  “Jared?”

  His eyes traveled over her slightly parted lips. Lips whose sweet, heated response he could recall without effort.

  “What did you say?” he asked, annoyance seeping into his tone.

  She bridled. “I asked if you want to hear my thoughts on pricing. But if you don’t want to…”

  “Go ahead.” He got up and walked to the window, looked out at Elliott Bay instead of at Holly.

  When she told him her conclusions, Jared was startled at how similar the numbers were to those he’d come up with, though her rationale was quite different. She knew her stuff inside-out—her only fault was that she explained things in such detail, he couldn’t get a word in edgewise to compliment her.

  They were so engrossed in their discussion that he didn’t check his watch until hunger pangs reminded him they hadn’t eaten.

  “It’s nine o’clock,” he told Holly. “I’m starving. Let’s get a pizza and keep working.”

  She wrinkled her nose, as if pizza didn’t suit her, but agreed, so he went ahead and ordered. He poured two glasses of wine from a bottle he found in the refrigerator. When he looked up at Holly, she was rubbing the back of her neck with both hands. The movement lifted her breasts beneath the thin cotton of her blouse, drawing his eyes down to the high, rounded curves. He wondered which of those sexy bras she had on underneath. Maybe the transparent, gauzy white underwire with the front opening clasp. Or the—what was it, ivory?—with the imagination-stirring gold buckles on the straps.

  Jared handed her a glass and raised his in a toast. “To you and your magnificent breasts.”

  When her eye
s widened, he realized what he’d said. “Brain! I meant brain! To your magnificent brain.”

  He really had meant to say brain. Jared clapped a hand to his forehead and cursed silently. After last Friday she’d think he was hell-bent on seducing her.

  He chanced a look at her.

  The silence he’d taken as horror turned out to be helpless, silent laughter that shook her slim frame so hard, wine slopped over the rim of her glass. He grabbed it from her, and she used both hands to knuckle tears from her eyes. At last she got enough air in to make some sound, and her laughter bubbled out into the room and caught him up in it.

  By the time he stopped laughing, Jared was weak with a sensation he barely recognized. Relaxation.

  He wiped tears from his eyes. “I don’t know how that came out,” he said. “No doubt you’ll slap a sexual harassment suit on me.”

  “Sure to,” Holly said equably. “But I needed a good laugh, so thanks.”

  Her eyes, clear and honest, held his. As he handed her wineglass back, he saw something spark in their gray depths.

  “So,” he said, never a man to miss an opportunity, though he should probably pass on this one, “is there some guy who’s going to punch me for what I just said?”

  Holly took a sip of her wine and leaned against the counter. Close enough and on the right angle for Jared to glimpse the swell of her breast where the top buttons of her blouse were undone.

  “A boyfriend?” She shook her head. “My focus is on building my business. I don’t have time for a relationship.”

  What was it with women and that word? “I’m talking about dating,” he said. “Not a relationship. There’s a difference.”

  “How interesting,” she said sweetly. “What do your dates say when you tell them that?”

  “I like to let them figure it out for themselves,” he said. “When I don’t call.”

  “Jerk,” she said pleasantly.

  He grinned, raised his glass in another toast, and downed a swallow of wine.

  The man was impossible. The only reason she didn’t despise him was because he didn’t pretend to be something he wasn’t, she told herself.

  To remind herself he wasn’t her type, she said, “So do you see yourself getting married one day? Having kids?”

  He started as if she’d prodded him with a branding iron. “I’m not interested in playing happy family. I couldn’t love one woman for the rest of my life, and I don’t want to pretend I do.”

  “What hope would there be for the world if everyone shared your attitude?” Holly said. “There are some great marriages around.” There’d better be. She was banking on living a completely different life from her mother’s, and that meant making a happy marriage, one that would last.

  “You’re talking from personal experience, are you? From your parents’ marriage?”

  “Well, no, they’re divorced.” She scowled at his exclamation of triumph. “But I still believe in marriage. I want a husband and kids, and a house in the suburbs, complete with picket fence.”

  Jared shook his head in disgust. “I assume your parents split up, too?”

  To her surprise he said, “My parents epitomize the suburban dream. They married when Dad finished college and have lived in the same house for nearly fifty years. I can scarcely remember them ever arguing.”

  “So what’s the problem?” Holly asked, bemused. “It sounds perfect.”

  He looked as if he wished he hadn’t started this conversation. “The problem,” he said, “is that it’s all built on a lie.”

  Before Holly could voice one of the dozen questions that sprang to mind, the buzzer rang from the lobby.

  “That’ll be the pizza.” Jared made for the door with unconcealed relief.

  While he was gone, Holly set out plates and silverware. She resolved not to pry further into Jared’s background. A man who could twist the kind of normal family life that every American craved into some sort of tortured childhood had obviously made ingratitude an art form. Pandering to it would only make her mad—and would undoubtedly bring out the anger she sensed was barely contained beneath the thin veneer of Jared’s occasional civility.

  He arrived back and set the two pizza boxes on the table. “Plates,” he said dubiously. “For pizza?”

  “A small touch of civilization,” she said coolly.

  He shrugged, but gave up whatever point he was making as he started to unload slices of pizza onto the plates. Famished, they ate in silence for several minutes, by which time Holly’s irritation had passed.

  “This is great.” She wiped a stray thread of mozzarella from her chin with her napkin and stood up to clear away an empty carton. “Fattening, but great.”

  Jared looked her up and down. Because if that wasn’t an invitation to check out her slim curves, what was? “I don’t think you’re in too much danger of ballooning out.”

  She gave him a quelling look that inspired him to make his appreciation all the more overt. This time he ran his eyes blatantly over her and made fanning movements in front of his face. “Your sister has great taste in clothes. Does she look as good as you do in them?”

  She disregarded the compliment. “Much better. These are more age-appropriate for her. And she’s too young for you.”

  “You don’t know how young I like my women.”

  Holly returned his frank appraisal. At thirty-five he had the irritatingly good looks of a man who would still be handsome, still attracting much younger women, when he was sixty. But for now, there was no trace of gray in the dark hair that was slightly too long. The faint lines of strain around his mouth and eyes robbed his face of any boyishness, but not of its charm. He grinned, and the contrast of white teeth against tanned skin almost took her breath away.

  “What do you think?” he asked. “Do I pass?”

  “I think a man like you must have better things to do with your evenings than work,” she said. She herself often worked evenings and weekends. But she assumed Jared was the type to play as hard as he worked.

  He chuckled. “The night is young. I’ll get to better things later.”

  “Good for you.”

  “Sorry about the late hours.” He sounded totally unapologetic. “But I’d like us to work most evenings. The sooner we’re ready to start due diligence the better.”

  “I have nothing else to do.” She shot a covert glance at him. His tan suggested he saw plenty of fresh air, but faint shadows beneath his eyes gave the hint of a lie to his vitality. He looked, she realized, jaded. Too much fast food, no doubt—he hadn’t looked up the pizza number before he’d phoned.

  “If you like,” she said, “I could cook meals for us the next couple of nights. Something simple.”

  He couldn’t have looked more horrified if she’d suggested they do cross-stitch during their coffee breaks.

  “No.” His face darkened. “No cooking. No…domestic stuff.” He pushed his chair back and stood, as if to distance himself from the intimacy of sharing a table with her.

  Although she barely knew the man, didn’t even like him, it hurt. “Don’t panic,” she snapped. “It’s not some plot to lure you into bed.”

  His expression lightened immediately, and he gave a wolfish grin. “You didn’t say bed was part of the offer.”

  “It wasn’t, and you know it.”

  “I have no objection to bed.” He continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “That doesn’t count as domestic.”

  She looked at him, lean and dangerous, his eyes hooded and mysterious. “I don’t imagine it does with you,” she said.

  He grinned. “What do you imagine?”

  “I…nothing.” She threw her balled-up napkin at him in frustration. He caught it deftly with one hand before it hit.

  CHAPTER SIX

  RIGHT IS RIGHT, wrong is wrong. Holly had never wavered from that mantra, and she wasn’t about to start now.

  She’d broken one of her cardinal rules and gotten personally involved with a client. And it was wr
ong.

  But she could fix it. She could get back on to a professional footing with Jared. All she had to do was avoid him in the evenings. The meals they’d shared so far had ended up more like a date than a business meeting. The conversation got way too personal and there were too many opportunities to really look at him. The man’s physical presence would distract a nun.

  From now on, she would keep personal contact to a minimum.

  So when Jared turned up on Monday night, she told him she had a headache—which was true, she assured herself. The thought of behaving in an unprofessional manner toward a client really did make her feel ill. She handed him a sheet of paper with questions he needed to answer, told him to get back to her by morning, then shut the door in his face. At five o’clock Tuesday evening she handed him a proposed timeline for the negotiations, and once again told him to get back to her in the morning.

  “You’re not still unwell.” His eyes narrowed as if his gaze could bore behind her temples.

  “No,” she said reluctantly.

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “There’s no problem. You need to look at this timeline and you don’t need to be in my apartment to do it.”

  He raised his eyebrows at the “my.” “What if I want to clarify something?”

  “My cell phone’s on.”

  He leaned in closer to where Holly stood gripping the edge of her door, ready to shut it. Much closer. “Are you trying to get rid of me?”

  He was near enough to feel his warm breath on her face, sending a shiver down her spine. Holly didn’t let go of the door.

  “You’re being paranoid,” she said snootily. “Now, if you’ll excuse me…”