He had his hand on the ignition key when she said quietly, “I’d pay you. Very well. There’s a lot at stake…”
“A lot of money, you mean.”
She jerked her head to give him a sharp, almost guilty look. “Of course, what did you think I meant? Yes, there’s a lot of money involved. I-my husband and I-would be willing to split it with you-” she paused, and he could see her thinking it over “-three ways.”
McCall shook his head, but he couldn’t keep from smiling as he turned the key. “Sorry,” he said, as the Beetle’s ignition, for the first time in memory, fired on the first try.
“Fifty-fifty,” she said breathlessly. He put his hand on the gearshift. She reached over and placed her hand on his. “Please-think about it. That’s a lot of money. I don’t think you realize-”
“I have all the money I need,” he growled, shaking his head. Not looking at her. Wishing she’d take her hand off his. Hoping she’d leave it there.
She made a little sound of frustration as she took her hand from his, finally, and gestured with it toward the jumble of canvasses in the back seat. “Business must be very good.” Hard to miss the sarcasm.
In spite of it, he kept his face and tone serene. “My needs are simple.” He tossed away his cigarette and waited for a bus full of tourists returning from a visit to the ruins to go by, then pulled out into its exhaust wake.
He thought about lighting up another cigarette, but for some reason didn’t. Beside him, Cinnamon sat in silence, staring as intently as he at the road ahead. After a while she said in a voice that was even scratchier than usual: “What if I said to name your price?”
He didn’t know why that got to him, but it did. He smacked the steering wheel hard with his open palm. “Damn it, woman, it’s not about money.”
Again that breathlessness. “I said price. It doesn’t have to be money.”
He shot her a look. Surely she hadn’t meant that the way she could have meant it. Not this woman-Miss Goody Two-Shoes from Iowa with her cinnamon freckles and Nikes, smuggler of illegal animals, wholesome as molasses cookies… Ah, hell.
“I meant,” he said between clenched teeth, “that money isn’t everything. Maybe you’re not old enough to have found that out yet, but it’s true. Some things are more important than money-like my life, for instance. I mean, my lifestyle. I like my life. I live simply, quietly, no hassles. Live and let live. I don’t bother anybody and nobody bothers me. Zero stress-you get it? That’s the way I want it. And one thing I’ve found out, sister, is that the more money you have, the more stress. Let me tell you, I’ve had it and I don’t want it anymore. You can keep your money.”
“You could give it away. There must be something you care about.” Her voice sounded shaken; he could feel her eyes on him, so intense he felt their heat. Like sitting in the sun.
He stuck his lip out, pretending to think about it, then shook his head. “Nope,” he said, “can’t think of a thing. Just numero uno…”
“So,” she said tightly, suddenly angry, “you’ve dropped out of the world, is that it? Now you just…sit here with your head in the sand and let somebody else take responsibility for what happens to this planet and the creatures that live on it.”
He gave a hoot of astounded laughter. “Listen to you, Miss Goody Two-Shoes! Don’t tell me you care about this earth’s poor creatures.”
“Of course I care,” she shouted, and to his astonishment her voice cracked, as if she were only a good breath away from crying. “I own a pet shop, remember? Do you know what it’s like to see those animals, the way they ship them? Those parrots you paint-can you imagine one of those beautiful creatures crammed into a cardboard tube designed to hold tennis balls? They even stuff them into the wheelwells of cars. To cross deserts! They arrived cooked.” She paused, breathing hard. “I’m just trying to put a stop to it,” she said, and after a moment finished in a whisper, “That’s all.”
Well, damn. She sure sounded as if she meant that. Damned if he didn’t almost believe her. Which was more than he could say for some of the things she’d told him. That way she had of blushing, sometimes, while she was telling him something ordinary. He had to wonder about that blush.
He drove in silence, thinking about it as he threaded his way along the main tourist street, pastel tourist hotels on one side, palm trees and beach and aquamarine water on the other, para-sailers gliding through the afternoon sky like butterflies darting and dipping above the lazy surf. Familiar sights to him, after so many years.
I like my life…it’s the way I want it. No hassles…
He pulled into the taxi zone closest to the pier and parked, putting the VW in neutral but keeping the motor putt-putting away.
His passenger had her door open almost before he’d stopped, but then, instead of getting out, she turned to him and in that oddly prim little way she had, all stiffened up with pride, said once again, “Thank you.” Then she let out a breath and smiled-wryly, but a smile nonetheless. He realized it had been a long time since he’d seen it. “For saving me-again. I’m not sure what you saved me from, but I’m sure it wouldn’t have been pleasant. So…thank you. I mean it. Mister-it’s McCall, right?”
“No mister. Just McCall.” He took the hand she offered. It was unbelievably small, almost childlike. He found himself suddenly remembering her kiss, and the feel of her body tucked up against him. Nothing childlike about that. No sir.
“And you’re…Ellie.” Yeah, he remembered it now. Such a gentle name for a cinnamon girl. “Ellie…what?” He asked her that belatedly, remembering that she had a husband. Asking himself what did it matter what her name was, in that case. He was many things, but a seducer of other men’s wives wasn’t one of them.
“Ellie’s enough.” But she gave him her smile-the real one, briefly-before she got out of the car. Then she leaned down and said through the open window, “It’s short for Rose Ellen Lanagan. My dad’s Mike Lanagan.” She straightened and walked away quickly, toward the pier.
McCall stared after her. Mike Lanagan. Was that supposed to mean something? Why did that sound so familiar to him? Something from his former life… He shook his head once, hard, forcing the memory back into the dusty attic of his past.
More germane to the present, if that was her dad’s name-Lanagan-why had she given him her maiden instead of her married name?
And something else. Why didn’t she seem worried about having told him all this? Hadn’t it even occurred to her that he might go straight to the police?
And what about that, McCall? What are you going to do? Live and let live?
He was chewing on that when he noticed something that turned him cold all over. The envelope, the one the cigar-smoking boss-thug had given him. The one containing directions to a meeting with smugglers of illegal animals. Smugglers who, according to Miss Ellie, didn’t seem to care how many of their cargo lived or died. People, therefore, with little or no regard for life, animal or human.
She had that envelope in her hand.
He shut off the motor and got out of the VW and called to her over the roof. She paused and turned to look back at him. “What are you going to do?” he asked her, nodding toward the envelope.
She glanced down as if surprised to see it there, then lifted it, gazed at it, turned it over once. Shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said, and started walking again.
Live and let live. It seemed a fading memory to him now.
He jammed his keys into his pocket and set out after her at a jog trot. Which was more exercise than he was used to on a hot muggy afternoon, which, he told himself, was why he was out of breath and his heart beating hard when he caught up with her.
“Come on, Ellie,” he panted, shortening his customary lazy stride to match her short quick one. “Can’t you just let it go? For now, at least? Hey, at least until your husband’s back on his feet?”
She stopped walking and looked up at him, rosy from the sun and the heat and the exertion. He had a sudden and t
horoughly shameful urge to take her in his arms and kiss her, husband or no.
“First of all,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone, “these people are incredibly paranoid. Do you know how hard it’s been to win their trust, even this much? Any kind of delay, any glitches, and I’m afraid they’ll call the whole thing off. But besides that…aren’t you forgetting something?” She looked at him for a long time, but he waited for her to say it. She did at last, in a voice soft and scratchy as wool. “What happens if we happen to run into those three who were there today? As we surely would. As far as they’re concerned, you are my husband.” Her lips tilted wryly. “And let me tell you, McCall, you look nothing at all like my p-like Ken. How do I account for the fact that I’m now married to somebody completely different?”
McCall didn’t have much of an answer for that, so after a while he said, through a grimace of helplessness and a tightness in his belly, “You’re going to go through with this, aren’t you? On your own?”
She shrugged and turned to walk on. “I don’t know. Maybe. If I have to.”
He caught her arm and held on to it when she would have jerked away. “I can’t let you do that.”
She gave a small, incensed gasp. “You mean you think you can stop me?”
“No,” McCall said with a weary sigh, “I mean I’m going with you.”
He didn’t know what he’d expected her response to be-a little Snoopy-dance, maybe; a small “Yippee,” or at the very least a restrained, “Okay, cool.”
What she did was look at him for a long time without saying a word, a long enough time for him to begin to get good and uncomfortable with what he’d done. Way long enough for him to start to have second-and third-thoughts.
Then she put her palms flat against his chest, stood up on her tippy toes, and kissed him.
On the cheek. Nothing at all like last time-the Hello-Hubby kiss. And the effect it had on him was a whole lot different, too, though both had left him dazed and confused, and aching in places he hadn’t felt much of anything in for a long, long time.
For one thing, he suddenly remembered what that scent of hers was and where he knew it from. Orange blossoms, that’s what it was. It made him think of when he was a kid, and the road between his dad’s garage on the outskirts of Bakersfield, California, and his school in town was still lined with groves instead of subdivisions, and sometimes when the trees were in bloom the air would smell so sweet he’d roll down his window and suck it in with all his might, just trying to drink that air…
That and the kiss-sweet, impulsive, genuine-left him with an ache in his throat and a rough, cranky feeling that was like hearing certain old songs on top of too much tequila.
“Thank you,” she said. Nothing prissy about it this time, just soft and real, and sweet, like the kiss.
“I’ll need to see that envelope,” he said gruffly. “See where it is they want us to go. See if there’s a map, at least.” He held out his hand.
She held on to the envelope, enfolding it in both hands against her chest, eyes going wary again. “You really do mean it? You’ll come with me to the meeting? Pretend to be my husband?”
“I said I would.” McCall waggled his fingers impatiently. “Come on, hand it over-before I change my mind.”
“How do I know you aren’t just trying to get the directions away from me?” she demanded, flushed and breathless again. “To keep me from going?”
He gave an exasperated snort-though in his heart he rather admired her for thinking of that. And wished he’d thought of it first. “Come on,” he growled, “if I’m going to be your husband, don’t you think you should start trusting me?”
Trust you? A beach-bum-slash-artist I don’t know from Adam? Ellie wanted to say it, but didn’t. “We’ll both look at it-together,” she said firmly, then paused, chewing on her lip. “Is there someplace we can go? Not the ship,” she hurriedly added, before he could suggest it. “They know my husband there. They already think I’m a terrible wife for not going to the hospital with him-God knows what they’d think if I showed up with you. No-what about a restaurant? We can have lunch while we’re at it.” She was starving, actually; she’d been too nervous to eat before the meeting. Except for the Hershey’s Kisses, she’d had nothing to eat since breakfast.
McCall glanced at his watch. “Best thing would probably be if we just go to my place.”
“Your place?” Mamas warn their little girls about guys like this. And yet, try as she would, Ellie couldn’t find anything sinister or even suggestive in the invitation. Not the way he’d said it. Just business. She wondered if the funny little twinge she felt could possibly be disappointment.
“What, you still don’t trust me?” He was scowling at her, an impatient, sideways look. “No worries, sister. You’re probably young enough to be my daughter.” She made a small sound of insulted surprise, which he ignored. “Look, I’m going to have to unload the Beetle anyway, if we’re going to be heading south first thing in the morning. Not to mention one or two things I need to take care of. Believe it or not, I do have a life. Hey, look-suit yourself. Stay here, if you want to. I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning.” And he was heading back up the pier, sandals slapping and shirttail fluttering, muttering grumpily to himself.
“Wait!” Ellie yelled. Her mind was awhirl. Trust him? In spite of his overwhelmingly generous offer, about as far as she could throw him-which was why she was no way in hell about to let him out of her sight. What if he didn’t come back? She’d have no idea how to find him again. Young enough to be your daughter? What is that?
He paused and looked back at her long enough to bark, “What? Are you coming or not?”
“Coming!” she snapped back. Dammit, there was no way she was young enough to be this man’s daughter-and she was furious with him for making her feel as if she was. With that in mind she took a deep breath and fought down her temper. “Excuse me,” she said with what sounded to her like simpering politeness, “but I have to tell the captain I’m leaving the ship. And I’ll need to get my stuff.”
He took a few steps back toward her, warily, as if approaching a possibly dangerous animal. “Why? I told you-we don’t have to leave until tomorrow.” She didn’t say anything, just looked at him. Realization came to him a moment later, and he halted, teeth bared in a sardonic smile. “Ah. I see. You really don’t trust me, do you?” He ambled toward her, still smiling, arms folded across his chest. “Kind of got you on the horns of a dilemma, hasn’t it, sister? Don’t trust me enough to come home with me, but don’t trust me enough to let me out of your sight, either.” He made a brief, tsking sound. “Must be tough, being so suspicious all the time.”
She held her ground as he came closer, though her heartbeat seemed to accelerate with every step he took. When he came to a stop in front of her, folded arms almost brushing her chest, she felt as if she were standing on a moving boat, as if the pier under her feet were rocking with the force of her own pulse. Her eyes were on a level with his beard-stubbled chin. Gray stubble mixed with reddish brown. Hurriedly, she dropped her gaze-and saw dense, sun-bronzed skin, sun-bleached hair nestled in the deep V of a tropical-print shirt. Were there a few gray hairs mixed in? She caught a quick breath. Oh, good grief…
“I’m going to tell you something,” he said in a soft-rough growl that seemed to resonate in her very bones. “And listen carefully, because I’m only gonna say it once. I don’t like to let it get around too much. I do have a reputation to think about. However. In my own way, I am a man of honor. There are certain rules for living that, for completely selfish reasons, I try never to break. You, sister, are a married woman. I make it a point never to mess around with other men’s wives, for the same reason I make it a point never to cheat at cards. Saves me having to watch my back all the time. See, I’m a live-and-let-live kind of guy. No hassles-that’s my motto.
“Oh-and one other thing. I am also a man of my word. I told you I’d go with you to meet these…guys. We shook hands on it. I do
n’t go back on my handshake.”
Incomprehensibly rattled, Ellie sucked in a breath and retorted, “Yes, well, unfortunately, I have only your word for that.”
She was even more unnerved when he threw back his head and laughed. So unnerved that her gaze jerked upward and collided with his. And-oh, Lord, why did she keep forgetting how blue his eyes were? How clear and clean and…honest? And right now, bright with amusement.
“I guess you’re right about that,” he said, still softly chuckling.
And Ellie, still in thrall of those eyes, heard herself murmur, “I’m sorry.”
“Hey-if you were my daughter, I’d probably be the first one to tell you not to trust me. I think.” He seemed to think about that, then shrugged it off. “So, what’s it gonna be? Coming or staying?”
“Both,” Ellie said firmly, having just at that very moment made up her mind. “Coming with you and staying with you. But I still have to get my stuff.”
“Where you gonna put it? On the roof? My car’s full up, if you remember. And,” he added darkly, “I’m not sacrificing any more paintings for you, lady. At the rate my stock is being depleted, if I hang around with you much longer I’m going to be out of business. We’ll go and unload first, have some lunch and take a look at those directions. Check out a map. Then I’ll bring you back here so you can check out of your floating hotel. How’s that?”
“Fine,” said Ellie meekly. She was wondering what her parents would think of their nice level-headed daughter if they knew she was about to go home with a beach bum she’d only just met.
Chapter 5
McCall’s house was a surprise to Ellie. She’d imagined him living in a rickety beach shack with palm thatch on the roof and no glass in the windows. Instead, his house sat on a small cliff just outside of town, reached by wooden stairs that scaled the cliff in a series of short zigzags, and while it was slightly rickety and did have a thatched roof, it was much too substantial ever to be called a shack. Made of stone covered with dingy white plaster, it rather reminded Ellie of a sulky seagull squatting on a pile of rocks.
The Seduction of Goody Two-Shoes Page 7
