Tag, You're It!

by Penny McCall

  She snorted, turning back to the men ranged across the street. She took Jackass’s reins and walked straight at them. “I’ve been shot at, burned out of my house, kidnapped, and I haven’t eaten in two days. Crazy doesn’t begin to cover it.”

  The line of men parted like the Red Sea, all of them lifting their hands in the air and eyeing the Winchester within the crazy lady’s reach.

  Alex swung up on Jackass, Tag following suit on Angel, and the two of them rode out of town, unhindered.

  “We’re heading west,” Tag observed. “Too bad the sun isn’t setting.”

  She looked over at him, the corners of her mouth lifting. “By the time you get out of that saddle again, it will be.”

  “Is it too late to go back and let them shoot me?”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  DEE WAS READY FOR THEM WHEN THEY GOT TO the Bar D, thanks to Matt. She’d sent all her men out on the range in case any of them had already heard the rumor about the Lost Spaniard being found, and she’d managed to round up some clean clothes.

  A shower and a stationary meal did wonders for Alex, but she didn’t want to stay there any longer than Tag did. Matt wasn’t the only one who knew Dee was her best friend; if he could figure out she’d gone there, so could others, and Dee’s men had to return some time.

  Tag made a single phone call that produced a federal arrest warrant on Mick and Franky for kidnapping, a couple of first class tickets for him and Alex, and his ID waiting for him at the Denver airport.

  Alex made a single phone call, too. When they walked out of the airport in Boston a car and driver were waiting for them.

  “You okay?” Tag asked when her steps faltered.

  “Not really.”

  For the first time since Tag had met her, Alex looked like she might actually back away from something. “What’s going on?”

  She took a deep breath, met his eyes. “Just shouldering my emotional baggage ,” she said, walking over to the limo and leaning inside without actually getting in. Clearly she didn’t want him to see who was in the car just yet.

  So Tag looked over her shoulder.

  A man and a woman occupied the limo, both in their late fifties to early sixties, both impeccably dressed and reeking of money. The man wore a thousand-dollar suit and an air of quiet authority. The woman looked like an older version of Alex—if Alex was still Miss USA. Pink suit, matching shoes, pearls at her ears and throat, not a hair out of place. Her expression was set to “benevolence-for-the-little-people.” Alex’s could best be described as deer-in-the-headlights.

  “Hello, Alexandra,” she said, her gaze shifting to Tag. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?”

  Alex straightened, and Tag yanked her out of the limo before she could bang her head on the door frame.

  She leaned into him, just long enough so he knew he hadn’t imagined it, then took him by the hand and pulled him a few feet away. Distance apparently made breathing easier, but she wasn’t talking.

  “I take it that’s your mother,” Tag said. “Who’s the man with her?”

  “My stepfather, Preston Hobbs. They were married not long before Harper… happened. I went on the Miss USA tour, which I cut short, thanks to my fiancé’s attempt to rob everyone I knew. After that I went back and finished my PhD, pretty much year-round, then I went to Colorado. I’ve never really lived with Preston, and the most recent interaction we had was the apology I made when Bennet Harper conned him.”

  And yet she had a hell of a lot easier time talking about him than her own mother. “When’s the last time you were back in Boston?”

  “Almost two years.”

  “You wouldn’t be trying to put off the reunion, would you?”

  “I spent the entire flight dreading it. Putting it off seemed like the next logical step.”

  “Alexandra,” Cassandra trilled.

  “Or a last-ditch effort.” But she pasted a smile on her face and turned back toward the limo. She didn’t let go of his hand until he was imprisoned inside with her. “Tag Donovan, my mother, Cassandra Hobbs, and my stepfather, Preston Hobbs.”

  Tag shook Preston’s hand, squeezed Cassandra’s fingers, and kept his thoughts and opinions to himself. He didn’t know what was going on, but it was Alex’s show.

  “He’s very handsome,” Cassandra said, dimpling at Tag but talking to Alex. “Should I be assuming anything from the fact that you brought him home to meet us?”

  “I didn’t bring him home to meet you, not specifically. More like he tagged along.”

  “Cute,” he murmured. “What Alex isn’t telling you is that I’ve gotten her in some trouble—”

  Cassandra shrieked, pressed a hand to her bosom. “I’m too young to be a… a… grandmother,” she said with high drama—but she perked up almost immediately. “Who are your people, Mr. Donovan? When is the wedding?”

  “There’s no wedding, Mom.”

  Cassandra reached out blindly. Preston took his wife’s hand, winking at Alex.

  She worked up a faint smile for him, then shifted her gaze, met Tag’s. He was beginning to suspect that her decision to move a thousand miles away from Boston wasn’t all about Bennet Harper.

  Alex clearly resembled her mother—same finely drawn features, same gray eyes—but where Alex’s were sharp and almost frighteningly intelligent, Cassandra’s eyes were softer. And appearances seemed to be high on her list of priorities.

  “Maybe if you were properly clothed, Tag would marry you and give my grandchild a father.” Cassandra held out a Chanel bag, saying when Alex hesitated, “You’ll be staying at the Colonnade, of course. You simply can’t check in without luggage.”

  Alex took the bag, setting it on the seat beside her. “Thank you, but it really wasn’t necessary.”

  “Of course it was necessary. I knew you would be wearing your outback raggedy things, and you can’t check into the Colonnade dressed like that. You might run into someone I know.”

  “I was in Colorado, not Australia. And everyone wears jeans.”

  Cassandra waved that off. “It doesn’t matter if it’s the moon, there’s no excuse for being poorly dressed.”

  “I’m not pregnant, nobody’s getting married, and it doesn’t matter what I’m wearing. And you’re looking at me like I’m speaking Mandarin,” Alex finished, her impatience leaking out on a sigh. “I need you to focus here, Mom.”

  Preston put his arm around his wife’s shoulders. “I believe Alex and her friend may be in need of assistance, Cassie. Perhaps we should worry about their wardrobe later.”

  Alex shot him a grateful smile, but now that she had the floor, she didn’t know exactly how to begin.

  Tag came to her rescue. “The trouble started when I fell out of an airplane near Alex’s cabin in Colorado,” he said.

  Preston sat forward, and Cassandra was already ramping up for another performance when Alex stepped in.

  “It all started with Bennet Harper,” she corrected. “He decided to pay me back for what happened six years ago—”

  “But that wasn’t your fault,” Preston said.

  “When Bennet is involved it’s always someone else’s fault. He decided it was time to get back at me.”

  Between the two of them, Tag and Alex sketched in the story, omitting a few pertinent details—like the possibility of death, and the possibility of pregnancy—and ending with being set up by Bennet Harper.

  Preston’s eyes were hard by the time they finished. So were Cassandra’s. Tag took one look at her and revised his earlier opinion; the resemblance between mother and daughter wasn’t only skin deep. Now he could see where Alex got her strength and determination. And he began to suspect what her secret weapon might be. Or rather who.

  “We don’t know who the investor is,” Tag said. “That’s why we’re headed to the Colonnade, to meet up with the agents who were putting Harper’s investment list together.”

  Cassandra sniffed. “You can be sure it’s no one we ass
ociate with.”

  “No,” Alex agreed, “but you’ll know a lot of the other names on the list, and you know the people Bennet will be recruiting for his next scheme.”

  “And you want us to put out the word,” Preston said.

  “I want you to destroy him.” Alex scooted forward, took her mother’s hands. “I know you thought it was just poor business sense on Bennet’s part before, and I know how you hate other people gossiping about us. But he has to be stopped, Mom, and I can’t think of anyone better equipped than you to hit him where it hurts.”

  Tag fought back a smile, but he allowed himself to appreciate the sheer genius of Alex’s revenge. Cassandra might give the impression of being flighty, but her position in Boston society meant she was on a first-name basis with everyone who was anyone—or at least their wives. And the wives would tell their husbands. It was only a matter of time before every powerful man in Boston would be scrutinizing Bennet Harper’s business dealings. And this time they were putting the word out to everyone.

  “He’ll hate being ruined by a woman,” Tag said.

  Alex smiled. “The thought had crossed my mind.”

  ———

  THE COLONNADE WAS ONE OF BOSTON’S FINEST, AND most expensive, hotels. Alex had insisted they stay there, and Tag figured they owed her that much after what she’d been put through. Knowing Mike would be strangling on the requisition was just gravy.

  As they completed their check-in, they were approached by a bellman who seemed to be channeling Cassandra, looking down his nose at their rumpled jeans and shirts, sneering over their lack of luggage. Alex waited until the man lifted his gaze to hers, then froze him with a look.

  Tag nearly laughed when she handed the man the Chanel bag her mother had packed for her, one eyebrow inching up to her messy hairline. The man all but fell over himself leading them to the elevator and up to the suite.

  Alex walked through the door, not sparing him another glance. “Adequate,” she said, flicking a hand over her shoulder.

  Tag played along, pulling a fat money clip out of his pocket, glancing at the single bag on the bed and tipping the prescribed amount.

  Alex turned, still wearing her Boston diva expression. But her eyes were sparkling as she watched the bellman bow himself out of the room.

  “You’re a diabolical woman,” Tag said, “but you have good taste. Expensive anyway.”

  “He deserved it,” she said. “So did your boss.”

  “I’m not complaining.”

  The suite was done in rich, dark wood and fabrics, gleaming chrome and glass. A baby grand sat off to one side of the main room, and wide, floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the city behind it. If he’d had to make a comparison, he would have said it resembled the drawing room of a Beacon Hill mansion.

  Alex walked over and picked out a tune, one-handed, on the piano.

  “Chopsticks?”

  She smiled faintly. “Chopin. It was my talent. Miss USA.”

  “You have a lot of talents,” Tag said. Including, he thought when she turned her back, the talent for ignoring what made her uncomfortable. She wasn’t used to taking compliments; meeting her mother pretty much explained that. Sarcasm was more her thing. Or silence.

  She retrieved the Chanel bag the bellman had left at the edge of the sitting area and disappeared behind the bedroom door. When she returned forty-five minutes later, she’d showered, tamed her hair, swiped on some mascara, and changed into slim black slacks, a plain white blouse, and strappy, spike-heeled sandals that put her almost eye to eye with him. Understated and casual, if you saw the clothing hanging on a rack. On Alex it might as well have been satin and diamonds.

  “I don’t know about you,” she said, “but I’m in the mood for a big, juicy steak.”

  Tag lifted his gaze, very slowly, from her toes up to her face. “That would be Number Two on my list.”

  Alex lifted a brow.

  “We could get room service.”

  “We could.” But her attitude said it wasn’t likely.

  “They won’t let me in the restaurant like this,” Tag said, indicating his jeans and shirt, which gave every evidence of having been worn continuously for a good portion of the last week.

  “They’ll loan you a jacket.”

  “Nope.”

  Alex shrugged. “There’s always room service.”

  Tag caught her arm as she tried to sweep by him. “Why the sudden urge to dine with people you’ve been avoiding since you broke up with… Shit, Alex. You want Harper to know you’re in town.”

  “It’s me he’s after. Not you, and not my mother.”

  “You don’t need to stand in front of your mother,” Tag said, heading for the phone. “She’ll be protected, and so will you. He’s not getting within a mile of either of you.”

  “What are you going to do, have him arrested? You can’t. He hasn’t done anything wrong. Not that you can prove, anyway.”

  Tag swore under his breath, but he put the phone back in the cradle. They hadn’t found Mick and Franky yet; Tag needed one of them, Mick preferably, to verify for the U.S. attorney what he’d told Tag in the field. The treasure was a wild goose. Alex had been lured into the chase so Harper would have a fall guy to toss to his investors—one in [garbled] although without the investor list they didn’t know who she was being set up for. All they had was a web of assumptions—pretty accurate assumptions, Tag figured, but personal opinion wouldn’t hold up in court.

  He’d be damned, though, if he let Alex dangle herself under Harper’s nose like live bait. It would have been nice if she cooperated by keeping a low profile, but there was no point in saying as much. She already knew how he felt, and she was still walking out the door. And he wasn’t letting her out of his sight.

  That didn’t mean he couldn’t look good while he did guard duty. They hit the gift shop before the restaurant. The FBI sprung for a new jacket for Tag, and when the maitre d’ eyed his rumpled jeans, Alex dropped names un. The fact that several of the men in the place raised hands in greeting to her probably helped. The women weren’t as welcoming. There was a lot of whispering, and it spiked every time Alex left the table.

  “You want people telling Harper you have a bladder problem?” Tag asked her the fourth time she came back from the ladies room in the space of an hour and a half.

  She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “As long as he knows I’m using a Boston bathroom.”

  “Harper’s a coward, Alex. He won’t come after you. He doesn’t have to. That’s why he set you up, so he can walk away free and clear while you pay for his lies.”

  “I’m not the only target.”

  No, Tag thought, and if he had his way she wouldn’t be a target at all. “There’s nothing we can do about that tonight.”

  “Then let’s not worry about it.”

  Tag stood when she did and followed her from the restaurant. When they got on the elevator, she didn’t push the button for their floor. “What are you up to now?”

  “Something I’ve been dying to do for four years.”

  The elevator hit the top floor, and she began to unbutton her blouse. Tag’s mouth went dry. He watched her walk to a door with words on it, but he couldn’t have dragged his gaze off her bare back to save his life. And when her slacks began to slide down, revealing the top of a lace thong, he tried to go after her and almost fell on his face because his legs had gone completely numb. There wasn’t much sensation in the upper part of his body either.

  All feeling seemed to be concentrated… centrally, contracting to a point of almost unbearable heat and need before it burst out to every extremity and threatened to blow off the top of his skull.

  “This door is locked,” Alex said, turning to him.

  Tag opened his mouth, but since he’d stopped breathing he had to suck in a lungful of air, and then he had to get his brain to kick back in so he could locate his vocabulary and put together a coherent sentence. The word “pool” on the door behind h
er helped. “It’s after ten o’clock,” he wheezed. “The pool is probably closed.”

  “Don’t tell me you can’t get it open.”

  Tag closed his eyes. That helped. When he opened them again he kept his gaze above her Wonderbra. “I don’t have any lock-picking tools.”

  Alex slipped off her slacks and stood there in a lot of bare skin and not very much lace, staring expectantly at him.

  Tag spun around to face the door. Turning his back on her might have made him feel slightly more in control if the sight of her hadn’t been burned on his retinas. He fumbled a credit card out of his wallet and tried to slip it between the door and the jamb. It didn’t work, and since that had been his only idea, he settled for pure brute force, backing up far enough to plant his foot on the door next to the lock. He bounced off. It might have had something to do with the fact that he was in no condition to lift his leg and there was very little blood flow to his muscles.

  Alex rolled her eyes, handed him her clothes, and eased him aside with the back of her hand. She took hold of the doorknob, put her shoulder against the door, and did something with her hip that made his breath wheeze out and the door pop open.

  She sent him a smile then walked through the door and straight to the pool, pausing only to kick off her shoes before she dove in. She swam a length and back, folding her arms on the edge. “You have no idea how much I missed this,” she said, looking up at him. “There was a stream not far from my cabin, but even in the spring it was only a couple of feet deep.” She gave herself a little shove away from the side and rolled onto her back, lazily sculling with her hand to keep herself afloat. “It’s like being in Colorado with all the stars, only better.”

  Tag looked around. The pool was only eleven stories up, and they were almost completely ringed in by office buildings. Only a few lights were on in the high-rise windows, enough to dim the stars to mere specks. But he could attest to the fact that imagination counted for something.

  “Are you coming in?” Alex asked.

  Tag stripped down to his boxers, sat and dangled his feet in the water.