[Cutthroat Business 01.0 - 03.0] Boxed Set

by Jenna Bennett

  “Um…” I glanced over my shoulder. “Do you want to come upstairs for a cup of coffee or something?”

  He smiled. “I guess you feel safe asking me that, seeing as you know I’m in a hurry, don’t you?”

  I shrugged, and he added, “I don’t think that’d be a good idea, darlin’. Don’t wanna start something I don’t have time to finish, and if I start something anyway, I’ll likely end up in jail.”

  I nodded. A part of me had counted on his saying no. I don’t think I would have suggested it, had I not been absolutely certain he’d say no. However, there was another part that wished, secretly, that he’d accepted. Although that part was probably just tipsy and a little sentimental, and certainly too self-absorbed to think about what would be best for him. “I guess this is it, then.”

  “Guess so.”

  We looked at each other for a moment. “Take care of yourself,” I said.

  “You, too. And don’t marry nobody while I’m gone. If Satterfield proposes, put him off for a while. I’ve got plans for when I get back, and if you’re married to somebody else, that’s gonna cramp my style.” He winked.

  “Sure,” I said sarcastically, fighting back a blush. “If Todd proposes, I’ll just tell him that Rafe wanted me to wait, so he could sleep with me before I got engaged. I’m sure Todd will understand.”

  He laughed. “Oh, he’ll understand, all right. He won’t like it, but he’ll understand.”

  We stood and looked at each other for another few seconds. “I’ll miss you,” I said impulsively, surprised to realize it was true. In just a few weeks, he’d become a part of my life. Not a huge or permanent part, more like a part that came and went, but one that was usually there when I needed it.

  He grinned. “I’ll miss you, too. At least when some other gorgeous blonde isn’t throwing herself at me.”

  “Thanks.” Here I was, trying to be sincere and serious, and all he could do was make bad jokes. “Your sentimentality is heart-warming.”

  He flashed another grin. “I do my best.” And then the grin faded and he reached out and touched my cheek with his knuckles. It was a surprisingly tender gesture, and one that, for all its gentleness, felt more like a quick jab in the stomach. “I gotta go, darlin’.”

  I nodded. “Is this where you kiss me goodbye and ride off into the sunset?”

  He glanced over his shoulder at the Harley-Davidson. “More like I drive hell for leather down the interstate with the law on my tail, but yeah. I guess.”

  “OK,” I said softly.

  He arched a brow. “You ain’t gonna fight me over it?”

  I shook my head.

  “Well, hot damn,” Rafe said. “I need to go away more often. Come here, darlin’.”

  He put both hands on my waist and pulled me closer, close enough to feel the heat from his body through my dress. If I took a deep breath, my chest would probably touch his. Good thing I couldn’t seem to get that much air into my lungs.

  Looking up into his eyes was uncomfortable, so I focused on his lips instead. They were beautiful lips: nicely shaped and just full enough without being too full; made for kissing.

  As I stared, those nice lips moved, and I concentrated to hear what they were saying. Rafe’s voice was rough, and the buzzing in my ears didn’t help, but I could just make out the words. “Christ, Savannah! I oughta be halfway to Memphis by now, and if you look at me like that, I’ll never even make it down the street.”

  The shock cleared my head, and I stared up at him, eyes wide and lips parted in shock. The next second he had yanked me up against him; chest to chest, hips to hips, and mouth to mouth. My body stiffened, and then melted against his. As his tongue slipped into my mouth, my eyes rolled back in my head and my knees turned to water. If he hadn’t been holding me up, I would have melted into a puddle at his feet.

  This state of affairs went on for a while. I’m not sure how long, since I was mostly unconscious. But eventually an insistent noise intruded on the moment, and after listening to it for a while, my body got the message that it needed to respond. It took incredible effort, but I managed to get both hands against Rafe’s chest and push.

  Once I was away from the heat and pull of his body, the noise distilled itself into words. “Break it up, you two! This is a public place; you can’t do that here!”

  I looked around, blinking, my lips swollen and my hair straggling, only to be confronted with a black-and-white squad car and the smirking face of patrol officer George Truman. Spicer was leaning across the passenger seat, grinning. “Shoulda figured it’d be you two again,” he said. “No better’n a couple of kids. Take it upstairs or we’re gonna have to run you in for indecent behavior.”

  “Sorry,” I managed. Rafe didn’t say a word, but I could feel his body strum with tension. Difficult to say whether it was because of what we’d just been doing or the fact that Spicer and Truman might be here to haul him off to jail. “We’ll move.”

  Spicer put the squad car in gear. “See that you do. Or you’ll be spending the night downtown. And not together, either.”

  He pulled away from the curb. We watched the car drive away, and then I turned to Rafe. It took effort to make my voice steady, but I managed. “You should go.”

  I couldn’t bring myself to look up and meet his eyes, so I kept mine on the top button of his shirt instead. He nodded, but didn’t move. I added, “Before they realize they made a mistake and come back for you.”

  Grimaldi had said that next time, she’s make sure Spicer and Truman knew not to let him leave.

  “Right. I’ll see you around, darlin’.” He hesitated for a second before he leaned down and kissed me again. This time on the cheek. His lips were cool against my skin, and he smelled faintly of something clean and spicy, that I hadn’t noticed in the sensory overload earlier.

  “Be careful,” I said. Darn it, we were back where we started, standing awkwardly on the sidewalk with nothing to say!

  He grinned at me. “Sure thing. You too.”

  “I’ll try,” I said.

  “I’ll be in touch.”

  And with another quick grin he turned on his heel and walked away. I stood where I was and watched him get on the bike, start it up, and pull into traffic. He lifted his hand once, and then he was gone. I watched the taillight of the bike until I lost it among the others, merging onto the interstate down at the corner of 5th and Main. And then I went upstairs to my – I admit it – lonely apartment and went to bed. Alone. And if I felt just a touch of regret, that’s nobody’s business but my own.

  About the Author

  New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Jenna Bennett (Jennie Bentley) writes the Do It Yourself home renovation mysteries for Berkley Prime Crime and the Savannah Martin real estate mysteries for her own gratification. She also writes a variety of romance for a change of pace.

  For more information, please visit Jenna’s website: www.JennaBennett.com

  HOT PROPERTY

  Cutthroat Business Mystery #2

  * * *

  Copyright © 2011 Bente Gallagher

  All rights reserved.

  * * *

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  * * *

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Created with Vellum

  Contract Pending

  Savannah Martin Mystery #3

  Absence makes the heart grow fonder, they say, and R
ealtor Savannah Martin is certainly learning the truth of that statement. It’s been a month and a half since Rafael Collier left town, after the robbery ring he was part of got broken up by the police, and although Savannah knows it would be hideously inappropriate—not to mention supremely stupid—to miss him, she wishes he’d come back soon. His grandmother’s ailing, the nurse he hired to take care of her has disappeared, and somebody is watching the house and following Savannah as she goes about the business of bringing her first real estate transaction to a close.

  * * *

  But when Rafe comes back, things only go from bad to worse. Resident nurse Marquita Johnson is found murdered, and Metro Nashville Homicide Detective Tamara Grimaldi is asked to handle the case. It doesn’t take long for her to focus her interest, once again, on Rafe. As Savannah finally learns the truth about him, she finds herself in the path of a killer more ruthless than any she has encountered yet, a killer who won’t be swayed from his purpose and who isn’t too particular whom he has to go through to get to Rafe.

  * * *

  Now Savannah has to make the choice between staying safe by accepting Todd Satterfield’s proposal, or taking a chance on losing her heart and her life by trying to help Rafe, as the term ‘contract pending’ takes on a whole new meaning.

  Chapter One

  Absence makes the heart grow fonder, they say, and there must be something to it, because I started missing Rafael Collier pretty much the minute his taillight disappeared around the corner at the end of the block. As the weeks went by with no sign of life, I only missed him more.

  Or maybe missed isn’t exactly the right word. I mean, I’m not stupid, and missing Rafe would be just that. Stupid. We weren’t involved, and it wasn’t like I cared that I might never see him again. Not really. Not much, anyway.

  Or maybe I cared a little. When a man saves your life, you tend to feel a little sentimental about him afterwards, and the fact that Rafe is drop-dead gorgeous and has made no secret of finding me somewhat attractive as well, didn’t exactly hurt, either. Nor did the fact that he was the only man I had ever met who could, quite literally, leave me breathless and weak in the knees with no more than a look.

  So yes, I might have been just a mite disappointed that he hadn’t decided to take advantage of me before he left town. The idea that he might never come back, and that I’d missed my chance to indulge in one night of wild passion before I settled down and married my old boyfriend Todd Satterfield, was irksome, to say the least. I’d gotten used to having Rafe around, his cheerful attempts to talk me into bed gave my ego a much-needed boost after I leaving my cheating husband two years ago, and, to be honest, I felt safe knowing Rafe had my back. I’d gotten myself mixed up with two different murderers in the past few months—something of a record for someone who’s not looking for trouble—and just in case it happened again, I’d feel better knowing that Rafe was in reach. Except he wasn’t, and now something was brewing that caused my want of him to spike into something close to desperation.

  It all started over dinner with Todd at Fidelio’s Restaurant.

  Todd Satterfield is my brother’s best friend and my mother’s choice of second husband for me. He’s also someone I dated for a year in high school. When I married Bradley Ferguson, Todd married a girl named Jolynn because she reminded him of me, and when I divorced Bradley, Todd divorced Jolynn. Now he wants to get back together. He hasn’t come out and proposed yet, but he’s come pretty close. And when he eventually gets around to it, I don’t see what I can do, other than accept. He’s everything a well-brought-up Southern Belle should want in a husband: normal, healthy, and good-looking, at least if one’s tastes should happen to run to the fair-haired and blue-eyed all-American type. He is also nice, honest, attentive, unfailingly polite, loyal to a fault, and flatteringly devoted. Oh yes, and well-off. More than capable of providing for me in the manner to which I was born, and to which I would like to become accustomed again, once I don’t have to support myself. He can trace his antecedents back to the War Against Northern Aggression—that’s the Civil War to you Yankees—and he has a brilliant future ahead of him in the district attorney’s office in Columbia, and probably—if I know him—in politics. In short, he’s perfect. Or would be, if it weren’t for one thing.

  “Have you heard anything from Collier?” Todd asked. His voice sounded strained.

  I shook my head. “Not a word.”

  Todd smirked. “I always told you he was trouble.”

  He had. Repeatedly. He was absolutely convinced that Rafe was a threat to my virtue—correct as far as it went—and he kept giving me reasons why I shouldn’t have anything to do with him. He—Todd—had even gone so far as to hire a private investigator to follow Rafe around, just so he could prove to me that Rafe was involved in illegal activities. Since this was something I’d already suspected anyway, the news didn’t come as a big shock.

  “I know you have,” I said docilely.

  “I gave the police those pictures I showed you, you know. The ones of Collier and those three men who were involved in those open house robberies last month. The police seemed quite interested in them.”

  “I’m sure they were,” I said. Rafe had been involved in last month’s robberies up to his eyebrows, and considering that he’s at least six three, that’s pretty high up. “They’re all languishing in jail already. Detective Grimaldi told me.”

  Tamara Grimaldi with the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department’s homicide unit is by way of being a friend of mine. Or at least a close acquaintance, if that isn’t a contradiction in terms. We met a couple of months ago, after Rafe and I stumbled over my colleague Brenda Puckett’s butchered body in an empty house in East Nashville, and the detective dragged both of us to Police Plaza for questioning. She turned up her nose at my delicate constitution and ladylike vapors, but over time we buried the hatchet and arrived at an uneasy sort of truce. The detective tolerated me and made no attempt to hide her interest in Rafe, although I’ve never been entirely sure whether that interest is professional or personal in nature. On the one hand, he has done plenty in his life that might interest a police detective. On the other, he has attributes that might interest any halfway conscious woman, too.

  “I met your Detective Grimaldi,” Todd said. “When I dropped the pictures off.”

  I didn’t see the sense in explaining that the detective isn’t actually mine. “What did you think of her?”

  “She seems competent enough,” Todd said. “And she was very complimentary of you. Although she said something I didn’t understand. Something about your terrible ordeal and a DVD…?”

  I grimaced. “Oh. That.”

  Todd looked politely inquiring, and after an uncomfortable pause, which I tried to fill with sips of wine while I avoided his eyes, I gave up. “I told you about what happened last month. With Perry Fortunato, the man who raped and strangled Lila Vaughn, and who raped and strangled his wife, and who would have strangled me too, if Rafe hadn’t killed him first.”

  A shadow crossed Todd’s even features. He didn’t like to be reminded of the fact that I—and he—owed Rafe Collier my life. “Yes.”

  “Well, I didn’t mention the fact that he liked to film things. Like sexual encounters. His own and other people’s. And that he tied me to his bed and was going to film me. Except he ended up filming his own death instead.”

  Todd went very still. “He tied you to the bed?”

  I nodded.

  “Naked?”

  “Well… almost naked.” I’d been wearing a bra, panties, and a pair of shoes, to be exact. And earrings and a watch.

  “Collier was there?”

  “He killed Perry. I told you that.”

  Todd had taken to breathing through his nose. Somehow, the fact that Rafe had seen me in my skivvies seemed to upset him more than my almost being raped and murdered. “Did he touch you?”

  “Perry? No, he didn’t get a chance to. Other than when he undressed me and tied me to the
bed in the first place. But I was unconscious then, so I don’t really know what he did.”

  “Collier!” Todd clarified, between gritted teeth.

  “Oh. No. Of course not.” Other than a teasing stroke up my arm that had almost made me jump out of my skin, but there was no need to mention that. “He’s not like that.”

  “Hah!” Todd said. He grabbed his glass of Merlot and tossed back the dregs. I took another ladylike sip of my Chardonnay in lieu of remonstrating. It was difficult not to try to explain why he was wrong, but I knew from experience that it wouldn’t make any difference. Todd was convinced that he knew what Rafe was like, and there was nothing I could say or do to change his mind. And therein lay the problem. Todd loved me, but he was obsessively concerned about my relationship with Rafe, and he would go to almost any lengths to make sure nothing happened between us. As evidenced by his giving his photographs to Detective Grimaldi in an attempt to get Rafe arrested. And as evidenced by his showing the photographs to me in the first place. He’d even turned me on to a woman named Elspeth Caulfield, who—Todd claimed—had been compromised by Rafe in high school. We’d all gone to Columbia High together, a few years apart, and Todd claimed Elspeth had had either a nervous breakdown or an abortion as a result of her encounter with Rafe. I had tried to ask Elspeth about it, but she refused to talk to me, explaining sweetly that we were ladies and didn’t discuss things like that. When I’d asked Rafe, however, he’d said she’d been a more than willing participant, and that she’d kept hounding him for months afterwards to continue the liaison. If she’d had a nervous breakdown or an abortion, she sure hadn’t mentioned either to him.

  “Have you seen anything of Elspeth lately?” I asked now, in an attempt to play tit for tat.