He cleared his throat, clearly ill at ease. “We’ve got a lot of ground to cover here,” he said, reaching into his back pocket for a small notepad. “Where do you want to start?”
Emily leaned forward slightly to put her glass down on the coffee table. “Where do you want me to start? With Danny? My parents? Our house in Connecticut?”
“How about we start with Delmore?” Jim suggested, flipping to a blank page in his pad.
Her eyes met his suddenly, a startling flash of blue in the grayness of the rapidly dimming room.
“Alex,” she said.
“Yeah,” Jim said. “Your boyfriend.”
Emily crossed her legs with a sudden quick movement. That, and a slight flaring of her nostrils, were the only signs that he had touched a nerve. And he wanted to touch a nerve, he realized suddenly. He wanted her to be as rattled as he was. He wanted to see some kind of evidence that she had missed him these past seven years as goddamned badly as he had missed her. Had she cried the way he had? Had she ached just from wanting to see him, the way he had for her?
He’d imagined her so many times, walking on the beach, staring out at the ocean, feeling so utterly alone and lost—the way he’d felt without her. But he’d also imagined her finding some nice safe guy and settling down. Settling, that was the key word. He’d imagined Emily settling for someone else, but still wanting him.
“Alex is a little old to call a boyfriend, don’t you think?” Emily said.
“Maybe we should call him…your lover.” Jim added just the slightest tinge of nastiness to his voice. He was needling her on purpose. There was no way she could have missed it.
But she didn’t react. No intake of breath, no flicker of her eyes, no tension in her shoulders. She just looked at him. And then she smiled.
“Alex Delmore and I dated,” she said quietly. “That’s all you need to know, Detective. Anything else isn’t your business.”
What the hell did that smile mean? It was as if she were keeping score, and she’d just won a point.
Jim reached forward and took a healthy slug of his iced tea, trying hard to keep his cosmic balance. He put the glass back on the tabletop with just a little too much force, and it made a loud noise in the room’s silence.
“Mind if we turn on a light in here?” he asked.
Emily shook her head, standing up in one graceful motion and crossing to a halogen lamp.
“Also, you better get used to calling me Dan,” Jim added, squinting slightly as the bright light seemed to fill the room. “Or Danny, or whatever you call your brother.”
“Danny,” Emily said, moving back to the rocking chair and sitting down again. “But he calls himself Dan now.”
“I need you to try to remember what you might have told Delmore about your brother,” he said. “Any little mention, anything he might remember.”
Emily chewed thoughtfully on her lower lip. “You know, I don’t know if I’ve ever even mentioned my brother to Alex,” she said. “I guess I must’ve. We’ve talked about Guilford, where my parents still live—you know, in Connecticut—so I must’ve mentioned Danny. But only vaguely. Like, ‘I have only one brother, no sisters. My brother lives in New Mexico. He’s an astronomy professor.’”
Keegan’s eyebrows slid upward. “That’s it?” he asked, in obvious disbelief.
Emily shrugged. “Alex and I really haven’t talked that much,” she said.
“I’ll bet,” Jim muttered under his breath. If she heard him, she gave no sign, except for another of those damned smiles.
They worked for close to two hours, going through Dan Marshall’s background, and the details of Emily’s childhood home in Connecticut. A little after nine o’clock, Jim rubbed his hands across his face and stretched.
“I gotta stop,” he said. “I’m losing my concentration. I’m sorry, but I pulled a double shift last night—I haven’t slept more than two hours in the past forty-eight. Mind if we finish this up tomorrow?”
Emily shook her head. “The couch pulls out into a bed,” she said. “There are sheets and a pillow in the linen closet. A blanket, too, but it’s pretty hot—you probably won’t need one. Feel free to use the shower.”
“Thanks,” he said.
He looked down at all the notes he’d taken, and cleared his throat. “I know…” he said hesitantly, his voice huskier than usual. He stopped, then started again. “This has got to be difficult for you. Working with me, I mean.” He looked up and forced himself to meet her steady gaze. “Especially with me living here like this.”
Emily was silent for a moment. Then she shook her head. “No,” she said with a small smile, “actually it’s not that bad.”
Jim couldn’t hide his disbelief. He stared at her, and exhaled shortly—a quick burst of doubt that under other circumstances might have been called a laugh. “You’re kidding,” he said flatly.
Again she shook her head. “No.”
“You don’t hate me?”
If she was at all surprised by the directness of his words, she didn’t show it. She did consider his question carefully, though.
“No,” she said finally, as if the answer were as surprising to her as it was to him. “I don’t. It’s true that I dislike you, but dislike is different from hate. Hate’s much too strong a word.” She stood up. “If we’re done for tonight, I’m going to run out to the grocery store. I have a couple things I need to get. Want anything?”
Keegan shook his head. He felt oddly dizzy. Emily didn’t hate him. She only disliked him. Somehow that was worse. “No,” he said, realizing suddenly that she was waiting for an answer to her question. “No thanks.”
Emily picked up her keys and went out the door, closing it firmly behind her. It wasn’t until she was down in the parking lot and sitting in her car that her knees began to shake.
God help her, she was such a liar. She didn’t know what she felt for Jim Keegan, but it sure wasn’t the cool indifference she’d pretended to feel. She wanted to feel indifferent, though. She wanted to be able to look at Jim and feel only mild distaste, not this…jumble of emotions, this mishmash of intense feelings.
She took a deep breath, and then another, and another. She’d seen glimpses of what she assumed must be the real James Keegan tonight. Rude, arrogant, selfish, impatient, conniving…the list went on and on. She was noticing all the imperfections and flaws that she hadn’t been able to see when she was dazzled by his rugged good looks and the kind gentleness that she knew had to have been an act.
After two weeks of eye-opening reality, she would feel nothing but cool indifference toward him.
Wouldn’t she?
CHAPTER FIVE
EMILY WOKE UP at eight-thirty, and got dressed before she left her bedroom.
But when she opened her door, the rest of her apartment was quiet. Too quiet. She ventured down the hallway and peeked into the living room.
The pullout mattress was back inside the couch, and the sheets that Jim had used were folded in a neat pile on the coffee table. His bags were out of the way, in the corner of the room, and he was nowhere in sight.
The kitchen was just as empty, but there was a note for her out on the counter.
“Emily,” Jim had printed in his big, bold handwriting, “I went out for a run. I’ll be back before nine.” He’d started to sign the note “Jim,” but had crossed out the J and signed it “Dan” instead, underlining the name twice for emphasis.
His handwriting was so familiar. It brought back a barrage of memories so intense that Emily had to sit down.
Over the course of the five months they had dated, Jim must’ve left her a hundred little notes like this one. Sometimes the notes had been tacked to the corkboard on her dorm room door. And sometimes he’d sent them through the mail, on silly postcards or even just scraps of paper stuffed into a business envelope. Often she’d opened her mailbox to find more than one envelope with her name and address printed on the front in Jim’s neat block letters. She’d opened them
to find clippings from newspapers or magazine articles he thought she might be interested in, along with a quick note. Sometimes he’d only send a note, and sometimes it would be only one line. But no matter what he said or what he sent, the message had been clear—Jim Keegan had been thinking about her.
So how did his thoughtfulness fit into the picture now?
Instead of being part of the softer side of a tough man, all those notes had probably just been another way Jim manipulated her into trusting him. And, boy, it had worked, hadn’t it?
The fact was, he’d dumped her only days after he got her into bed with him. It seemed safe to assume that, therefore, his sole goal in courting her had been to have sex with her.
When you looked at it that way, then yes, all those wonderful little notes did seem nasty and manipulative.
Emily stared down at the paper she was holding in her hand. But what about this note? There was nothing manipulative about this one. He had nothing to gain by telling her where he’d gone and when he’d be back. It was simple consideration.
She crumpled it up and threw it in the trash. So what? Even an ax murderer could be considerate now and then, she thought sourly.
The front door opened slowly, and Emily looked up.
Jim poked his head around the edge of the door, saw her, then stepped into the room.
“You’re up,” he said.
He was wearing a pair of running shorts and a muscle shirt that had more armhole to it than shirt. His skin—and there was so much of it showing—glistened with sweat, and his hair clung damply to his neck and the sides of his face.
He was carrying a white paper bag, and he brought it into the kitchen and put it on the counter. “Breakfast,” he explained, with an uncertain smile. “I picked up some bagels at that place down on the corner. You ever go there? It’s called Stein’s. I walked in and, you know, I thought I was back in New York City.”
As he talked, he poured water into Emily’s coffee-maker and searched the cabinets for filters. He found them on his second try, then opened the refrigerator and grabbed the can of coffee.
“You want more than one cup?” he turned to Emily to ask.
She was watching him, eyebrows slightly raised, and he stopped. “Um…” he said, “you mind if I…you know, make some coffee?”
Emily shook her head. “No,” she said. “As long as you don’t mind chipping in to help pay for the beans. Or whatever else you use.”
“Of course,” he said.
“Then, by all means,” she said, “make yourself at home.”
He smiled sheepishly. “I already was,” he admitted.
“I noticed,” Emily said. But then she smiled. At him.
But it was just a little smile, and it was over nearly as soon as it started. Still, Jim stared at her, momentarily lost in the blueness of her eyes.
He forced himself to turn away, pretending to concentrate on measuring out the scoops of coffee as he regained his equilibrium.
Sure, it was just a little smile, but it was a smile. A real smile, not one of those odd smiles she’d given him last night—one of the ones that suggested that she knew some kind of joke and she wasn’t going to share the punch line with him.
He pushed the filter into the coffee machine and put the can back in the fridge. As he glanced up, he saw that Emily was still watching him.
“Well,” he said, uncomfortable under her steady gaze, “if it’s okay with you, I’ll take a quick shower while the coffee’s brewing, and then we can get back to work.”
She nodded. “That’s fine.”
“Help yourself to the bagels,” he said.
Emily watched him walk down the hall to the bathroom. Jeez, he was still a hunk and a half. She pulled her eyes away before he could turn around and see her checking out his long, strong legs and his incredibly perfect rear end.
Many men hit their thirties and started losing their hair and developing beer bellies. But not Jim Keegan. No. He had to be one of those men who became more perfect with age. It wasn’t fair.
“I’M DAN MARSHALL,” Jim said, looking over his notes. “I’m thirty years old, a professor of astronomy at the College of Santa Fe in New Mexico. I went to Yale for two years, then transferred to the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, where I got my bachelor’s degree. I went to Denver, Colorado, to get my master’s, then back to UNM for my doctorate—”
“Have you ever even been to Colorado or New Mexico?” Emily asked.
He shook his head no. “I stayed on at UNM for two years, teaching, until I got the offer to head the department in Santa Fe—”
“How can you pretend that you’ve lived in the Southwest for ten years, when you’ve never been there even once?”
Jim looked up from his notes and smiled. “I’ve seen a lot of Westerns,” he said.
“I’m serious,” Emily said. “Alex’s mother lives in Phoenix. And I know that he’s been skiing in Colorado, but I don’t know exactly where. What if it was near Denver? What if he asks you a question that you can’t answer? It won’t take much for him to realize you’ve never been out West.”
Jim shrugged. “I’ll get by.”
Emily was leaning forward slightly, watching him, sitting in the same rocking chair she’d sat in last night. She wasn’t wearing much makeup, but her face had that glow that a person could only get from good health and the persistent Florida sunshine. Jim’s eyes traveled almost involuntarily down the long, slender lengths of her bare arms and legs. She had one hell of a perfect tan, not too dark, but a delicate golden brown. She sure didn’t get that tan from sitting inside, in her living room, all day. She had to be as antsy as he was, as eager to get outside and stretch her legs, work off some of this nervous energy.
Talk about nervous energy. Jim hadn’t felt this restless in a long time. Of course, the fact that he’d spent last night only one room away from a woman he’d once felt a powerful and irresistible sexual attraction toward had a lot to do with it. His eyes moved back up Emily’s long legs. God, she was gorgeous. She was a knockout, with those killer legs and that body—
Damn, who was he kidding? The attraction he felt wasn’t a thing of the past. It was extremely present-tense. It was here and now, and he couldn’t deny it. Seven years later, and he still lusted after this woman.
But if the attraction was mutual, she sure as hell wasn’t showing it.
“You hungry?” he asked her. “I know this great lunch place down by the beach. What do ya say we go get something to eat? My treat.” He stood up and put his file of notes into his gym bag. “Come on. It’s nearly one-thirty, and I’m starving. This place has the best jerk chicken in the universe.” He forced a grin. “And I oughta know. I’m an astronomer, right?”
Emily glanced at her watch. Was it really one-thirty? She hadn’t even had breakfast—only a cup of Jim’s ridiculously strong coffee. She wasn’t hungry, but she stood up anyway. Getting out of the confines of this apartment was a decidedly good idea. “Just let me get my sun hat,” she said.
Jim was waiting by the door when she came out of the bedroom. “You wanna take your purse?” he asked.
Emily pretended that she had forgotten her little canvas bag on purpose. “I thought this was going to be your treat,” she said.
He smiled. “I thought maybe you’d want your sunglasses.”
She knew she hadn’t fooled him, and she sighed. “I’m twenty-five years old,” she said. “I’m an organized person. I’m relatively neat, and always punctual. Why do I forget my purse all the time?”
“Get a purse that’s really heavy,” Jim said as they walked down the stairs to the apartment complex’s parking lot. “Then you’ll notice when it’s not hanging on your shoulder. Like, you know, right now I’m really aware that I’m outside without my shoulder holster on. It doesn’t feel right. Something’s missing, and I know it.”
Emily glanced at him. He’d changed out of his shorts when she went to find her hat, she realized. He was wearing long
pants and a pair of cowboy boots now, despite the hot weather.
“Are you—”
He finished the question for her. “Carrying? Yeah. I’ve got a gun in my boot. It’s not as easy to get to, but I didn’t think it would be believable for your brother to wear a jacket in this weather. And a shoulder holster would look a little funny without a jacket to cover it up.” He paused as they left the building’s protective awning and walked into the uncovered parking lot. The heat was intense, reflecting off the blacktop and making the air feel thick and suffocating.
“But I’ve been carrying a weapon for so long, it feels unnatural for me to be without something—even a gun in my boot,” Jim said, watching as Emily unlocked the door to her little car. “That’s how you’ve got to get with your purse. You’ve got to feel like it’s an essential part of you—that something’s missing when you don’t feel it there, next to you. You know what I mean?”
“But I hate carrying a purse,” Emily said. “I don’t want it to be an essential part of me.”
“Then maybe you should get a belt pack,” Jim said as he squeezed himself into Emily’s subcompact car. He had to recline the seat slightly, and still his knees nearly touched the dashboard. “By the way, that’s how I do it.”
“Do what?” Emily looked away from the rearview mirror to glance at him as she put her car into reverse and backed out of her parking space.
“How I handle questions that I can’t answer when I’m undercover,” Jim said. “I get around the questions. I answer vaguely, and then I change the subject, like I did with your question. Remember, you asked me what I’d do if Delmore asked me something about Colorado that I couldn’t answer, right? I turned around and asked you to lunch.”
“Yeah, but what if Alex asks something specific, like have you been to his favorite restaurant in Denver?” Emily said. “Won’t he be suspicious if you don’t even know what part of town it’s in?”
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