by JoAnn Ross
No! She wasn’t going to think about anything bad. Not this close to Christmas. After all, until this damn cold front had blown in, business had been booming. From the way her secret stash had been growing the past few nights, Tabitha concluded that this truly was the season of goodwill. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d made so much money.
In another week she’d have enough to buy Christmas presents for all her sisters and brothers back in Boise and still be able to afford that fluffy white rabbit coat she’d seen in the window at Holmes Department Store on Canal. Damn, couldn’t she use that coat tonight!
Trying to lift her spirits, she broke into a cheerful chorus of “Sleigh Ride,” which always reminded her of the times, back before her parents had gotten divorced and her mother had remarried that creep Tabitha always thought of as Roger the Pervert, when the family would go out into the Idaho woods to cut their own Christmas tree.
Her mother would bring along sandwiches and a thermos of cocoa, and as they’d drive through the snow-covered forest, they’d sing Christmas songs. And although her younger brothers and sisters always confused the words to “Sleigh Ride” with the lyrics from “Winter Wonderland,” no one had ever minded.
The memory, unlike so many others, was a good one, warming her from the inside out. As she danced in place, the silver bells she’d sewn on the hem of her short red miniskirt added a merry accompaniment to the Christmas tune. Her shiny black, thigh-high boots tapped a rhythm on the uneven stone sidewalk.
“‘It’s lovely weather,’” she sang in an enthusiastic, if slightly off-key, contralto, “‘for a sleigh ride together—’” she pointed at a passing motorist who’d slowed to watch “‘—with you!’”
On cue, the black Porsche came to a stop.
“All right!” She danced over to the car. When she reached the passenger door, the automatic window rolled down.
“Are you one of Santa’s little elves?” the driver asked. His hooded eyes gleamed in the diffused glow of the streetlight. His lips were curved in a smile that revealed a row of strong, perfect white teeth.
Tabitha couldn’t hold back her grin. She’d known the little red Santa’s helper dress would prove to be a gold mine. This was definitely her lucky night. From the looks of the car, the guy was loaded. And he was a lot better looking than most of the creeps who trolled the Quarter for teenage girls.
He kind of reminded her of Richard Gere, which was a definite plus. Like most of the girls working New Orleans’ streets, Tabitha fantasized about having some rich hunk in an imported sports car fall madly in love with her.
“It could happen,” she’d insisted just this afternoon to her best friend and sometimes roommate, Jolene.
“And pigs will fly all over the Quarter,” Jolene had snapped back. At twenty-five, she had given up on waiting for Prince Charming. “Better wear a hat tonight, girl. To protect your pretty blond head from all that pig shit.”
Well, with any luck, tonight would be the night she proved Jolene wrong, Tabitha thought.
“I can be anyone you want me to be,” she promised. Her breath came out in little, ghostlike white puffs. She flashed her most appealing smile and tossed her long blond hair back over her shoulder. The red-green-and-yellow lights in her battery-operated Christmas tree earrings flashed merrily. “Feel like a little Christmas cheer?”
“It is the season for parties.” His dark eyes—either blue or black, Tabitha couldn’t quite tell in the shadows cast from the streetlight—moved slowly over her face. “Have you been a good little girl?”
“Actually—” her cherry red lips turned down in a mock mew “—I’m afraid I’ve been a naughty little girl.”
He flashed her another one of those Richard Gere smiles. “My favorite kind.” He glanced with seeming impatience into his rearview mirror. “You’d think people would have enough sense to stay home on a night like this,” he muttered at the steady stream of traffic.
“We can go to my place.” The rented motel room a few doors down Rampart wasn’t much, but it did have heat. Since she’d been standing still, the cold had caught up with her, making her teeth begin to chatter.
“I’ve got a better idea,” he said. She heard the click of the passenger door unlocking. “Let’s go to my place. You are available for the night?”
This was getting better and better. Feeling just like Julia Roberts, Tabitha grinned. “I’m all yours, sweetheart. For as long as you want.” As she opened the door, a rush of warmth from the Porsche’s heater welcomed her.
Jolene was wrong, Tabitha decided as she settled into the onyx leather bucket seat. There was a Santa Claus, after all.
6
ALTHOUGH SHE WAS exhausted by the time she finally fell into bed, Desiree only slept in snatches. And whenever she did manage to drift off, her dreams were filled with dizzying, confusing images of tombs, tangled gardens, jungle rain forests and thunderstorms. The scenes shifted, constantly tilting and changing like the facets of some dark-lensed kaleidoscope. The only thing that remained constant was that Roman Falconer played a starring role in each and every one.
She dreamed of him as she’d first seen him, his eyes dark and strangely haunted as he stood at the fringe of spectators crowding the sidewalk outside the cemetery. She pictured him in his library, looking at her with an edgy, reckless desire in his hypnotic eyes—the view of the overgrown garden in the background.
She dreamed about that kiss they’d shared, the simulated rainstorm swirling around them while another, more violent storm raged inside her, leaving her reeling and helpless. Helpless against the practiced seduction of his firm, hot mouth; helpless against her own answering need.
And then, heaven help her, as the hour grew later and the full moon rose higher, her dreams grew darker.
She was standing nude, save for a wide, gold, stone-studded belt that had been locked around her waist, in a Bedouin tent somewhere in the Arabian Desert, wrists chained in front of her as a dark-haired man dressed in a white, open-necked cotton shirt, jodphurs and tall leather boots slowly circled her.
“She appears suitable,” he murmured.
“Oh, more than suitable,” the turbaned slave vendor insisted. “The woman has been trained by experts in the erotic arts. She will do anything you desire. Without question.”
The man’s midnight eyes moved over her, from the top of her auburn head down to her toes, the nails of which had been painted a gleaming pearl white. There was a primitive, feral sexuality in his dark gaze. “Anything?” he asked at length.
“She is your sexual slave,” the smaller man insisted.
The dark-haired man lifted his riding crop and trailed the thin black whip down her throat, across her breasts, following the spiraling lines of the hennaed nimbus that encircled her nipples. As he watched the rosy buds tighten at the potentially treacherous touch of leather, he smiled his satisfaction.
“I’ll take her.” His eyes, almost jet with passion and power, returned to hers. “My man will pay you.”
“Thank you, sir. You will not be disappointed.” Knowing when he was no longer welcome, the slave trader backed out of the tent.
“I do not plan to be.” The dark-haired man’s words, silky with menace, husky with sex, were directed at Desiree. With his hypnotizing eyes locked on hers, he placed his dark hand on her bare shoulder, silently commanding her to kneel.
He was the devil in the skin of a pagan god. Shivering with a complex blend of fear and wicked anticipation, Desiree had no choice but to obey her master.
When her clock radio came on, dragging her from her fitful sleep, Desiree’s body was throbbing with unrequited need.
“This is ridiculous,” she grumbled as she fought to free herself from the tangle of sheets. She had to stop thinking of Roman. She had to stop dreaming of him. She had to stop wanting him.
Even as she assured herself that she was not responsible for whatever scandalous and politically incorrect scenarios her rebellious, subconscious mind conjur
ed up, Desiree vowed not to allow him to continue to infiltrate her thoughts.
She was behaving like a foolish schoolgirl, getting all emotional over a man who seduced, then discarded women like plastic Mardi Gras doubloons. Oh, he may have turned reclusive lately, but there had been a time, not so long ago, when Roman Falconer had been socially and romantically linked with too many women in town.
By the time she’d showered and dressed for work, Desiree had sworn yet again that she was not going to succumb to Roman’s admittedly considerable charms.
WSLU-TV was located on Rue de Royal, the street where, once upon a time, the Streetcar Named Desire ran. Home of three of the city’s most important banks in the 1800s, the French Quarter street was now known for its expensive antique shops.
Desiree had always enjoyed working in the Vieux Carre. Until today, when she realized that she was little more than a stone’s throw away from Roman’s home.
The newsroom was, as always, chaotic. Cardboard coffee cups littered desktops, phones rang constantly, people hunkered over computer keyboards, tapping madly away. Perched atop a ladder in the corner of the room, Matthew Raynes, former quarterback for LSU turned sports reporter, flirted with the blond weather forecaster who’d arrived last week from KTSP in Phoenix and who was instructing him on the placement of lights on a fragrant pine tree. Observing them, Desiree envied their carefree banter.
She hadn’t been involved with a man since her breakup with Michael months ago. It wasn’t that she was carrying a torch. Or harboring a grudge. She simply hadn’t met any other man who interested her nearly as much as her work.
Until yesterday, she amended as she poured herself a cup of coffee. Until Roman Falconer.
The truth of the matter, as much as she’d love to deny it, even to herself, was that he fascinated her. Too much for comfort.
Although a headache was pounding behind her eyes, Desiree welcomed the near bedlam that came with frantic daily deadlines. It helped take her mind off the man who’d already infiltrated too many of her waking and sleeping hours.
She’d barely sat down at her desk to go through her mail when a delivery boy arrived with a long white box tied with a scarlet satin ribbon.
So much for forgetting about Roman, Desiree thought with an inward sigh as she tipped the delivery boy and untied the ribbon. Personally she found long-stemmed flowers excessive coming from a man she’d just met, but she couldn’t deny that the shared kiss had definitely speeded up their timetable.
She couldn’t find a card in the dark greenery, but Desiree had no doubt that the long-stemmed roses were from Roman. Even the color—a deep crimson so dark as to be nearly black—reminded her of the enigmatic writer. The blossoms were full-blown, their sweet scent almost overwhelming.
As she drew one rose from the box, a thorn stabbed her flesh, leaving a pinpoint of bright red blood on her fingertip.
Tossing the blossom back in with the others, she took the box into the ladies room and dumped it into the wastebasket.
“What are you doing?” Karyn Collins, the producer of the station’s early morning and noon newscasts, protested. “Don’t tell me O’Malley’s trying to get things started again?”
“Roses aren’t O’Malley’s style,” Desiree said. Her wounded finger stung and began to bleed again. Turning on the tap, she stuck it beneath a stream of cold water. “And for the record, Michael and I are just friends.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” Karyn said quickly. Too quickly, Desiree thought, looking at her colleague with renewed interest. As the producer blushed, realization dawned.
“I hadn’t realized you and Michael were an item.”
“We’re not.” Once again Karyn’s answer came a bit too swiftly. “At least, not like the two of you were. Right now we’re just kind of taking things day by day.”
“That’s probably best.”
Karyn’s worried dark eyes met Desiree’s in the mirror. “Are you certain you don’t mind? I only started going out with him because he assured me it was over between the two of you.”
“It is.”
Desiree felt only honest pleasure that Michael was involved with a woman as nice as Karyn. The divorced mother of two had not had an easy time, balancing work with her maternal duties. From what Desiree had been able to tell, she hadn’t had any social life at all for quite a while. Until now.
“Michael’s a great guy,” she said. “I hope things work out for you both.”
Casting one last disparaging glance at the roses scattered among the discarded paper towels, Desiree returned to her desk and picked up the telephone receiver.
Roman answered on the first ring. “Hello?” His tone was brusque, leaving Desiree to wonder if she’d interrupted him while he was writing. Tough.
“This is Desiree Dupree—” she began in the same brisk, professional voice she would have used were she calling the mayor to verify a quote.
“Ms. Dupree.” Even as he cut off her planned complaint, his voice warmed, irritating Desiree even further. If he thought she was just another one of his fall-into-bed-at-the-pop-of-a-champagne-cork socialites, he had another think coming. “Tell me you’re calling to set the time for our date.”
“Actually, I’m calling about the flowers. I realize you must have spent a great deal of money, but—”
“What flowers?”
“The roses.”
“Roses?”
She was usually very good at detecting nuances in a person’s voice—her job depended on it. And although it didn’t make any sense, Desiree would have bet her Emmy that Roman Falconer was not faking his confusion.
“Are you saying you didn’t send me two dozen roses this morning?”
“That’s precisely what I’m saying. Coincidentally, I considered it,” he added as an afterthought. “But I decided it might be overkill. Considering we haven’t even had our first official date. Yet,” he tacked on in a sexy drawl that strummed unbidden, unwelcome chords inside Desiree.
“You’re right. It would be excessive,” she agreed, even as she tried to think of someone else who might be prone to behave so extravagantly. “But if it wasn’t you...” Her voice drifted off.
“Sounds as if you’ve got a secret admirer,” Roman suggested. “Which shouldn’t come as that much of a surprise, considering that you’re intelligent, sexy and highly visible. Surely this isn’t the first time you’ve received flowers from a fan.”
“No. But they usually send a card.”
“Perhaps the florist forgot to include it.”
It was, of course, the logical answer. But somehow Desiree didn’t think it was all that simple. She glanced down at her finger, which still stung, remembered that scarlet drop of blood and could not quite shake the lingering feeling that the dark red roses were in some way evil.
“I’m sure that must be it,” she agreed. “I’m sorry to have bothered you.”
“You could never be a bother, Desiree.” His already deep voice dipped enticingly into its lowest register. “Let me know when you’re ready for our date.”
“I will.” She wondered what he’d say if she suggested New Year’s Eve in the year 2001.
“It would also be nice if it could be in this century.”
The man was dangerous enough without adding mind-reading skills to his repertoire. Desiree decided it was time to bring this conversation to a close. “Goodbye, Mr. Falconer.”
“Roman,” he reminded her. “Oh, and Desiree?”
“Yes?”
“If you change your mind about wanting flowers, just let me know.”
Irritated by the masculine confidence in his tone, she hung up without responding.
A call to the florist offered no explanation. The roses had been paid for, in cash, by a dark-haired man who hadn’t wanted to enclose a card. A secret admirer, as Roman had suggested.
Given, as he’d also pointed out, her high visibility, it was not an impossible idea. So why did it make her feel threatened?
Because of last year’s stalker, she admitted to herself.
Determined to put the mystery out of her mind for now, she resumed opening her mail.
Several of the letters stacked in her In basket were in response to a story she’d done on attempts to curtail prostitution in Armstrong Park. Another particularly strident letter suggested she do an exposé about the inability to locate decent citizen parking at the city courthouse center. There were also the usual requests asking her to appear at charity events or to speak to local civic and school groups.
Three of the letters were marked Personal. One was from a seven-year-old boy, inviting her to marry his widowed father. She put that one aside, intending to send a polite refusal that would somehow discourage the young boy without hurting his feelings.
The second, written in pencil on a legal pad, was a rambling discourse from a man professing to have been her husband in another life—in eighteenth-century London. Having already dealt with one obsessed fan, and wondering if this could be the man who’d sent the roses, she put that letter aside as well. Michael had handled her stalker case, and she intended to pass it on to him—just in case.
The third one, typewritten on expensive, linen bond paper, made her blood run cold.
“Desiree?” Karyn paused on her way by the desk. Her dark eyes revealed concern. “Are you all right?”
“I don’t know.” Desiree stared at the type, which seemed to be swimming on the page. “He says I’m the only one he can trust to tell his story.”
“Don’t tell me it’s another one of those UFO crackpots.”
“No.” Desiree carefully put the paper down on her desk and pressed one of the autodial buttons on her phone. “It’s the rapist. He’s unhappy about the lack of press he’s been getting.”
“You’re joking!”
“It’s not exactly a joking matter. He also says he hoped I enjoyed the roses.”
