Shelley got into her car with a sense of relief that lasted only as long as it took to drive to the next tavern on her list. Here the parking lot seemed filled with bigger and more battered pickup trucks, and there were a few large semis at the rear. This time the man behind the bar, a tall, thin, balding person with rather wide shoulders, came forward before any of the patrons could get off their bar stools.
“You Shelley Banning?” he asked politely, dark eyes expectant.
“Yes, I am.” She smiled with wry humor. “You’re supposed to make sure I have a chance to look around in peace, right?”
“That’s right, ma’am. Phone call from Joel a while back. Help yourself,” he added, nodding toward the smoke-filled room. “Yell good and loud if you need me.”
There was a live band in this place; a woman with long blonde hair and a skin-tight silver lame jumpsuit done in a western style sang throatily into the mike, backed up by a surprisingly good group of musicians. They had to work hard to be heard over the clatter of amusement games at the far end of the room.
Shelley made her way through the crowd, ignoring the occasional pat on her derriere and the inviting grins on several male faces. Once again, she surveyed the video game and pinball players in the bright glow of the machine lights. No redheaded, blue-eyed man among them.
The contestants draped themselves in various postures over the machines, setting down the beers in their hands to grasp the little joy sticks that controlled the action on the screens. Faces contorted in grimaces of urgent excitement, laughter and sometimes frustration as waves of Invaders were fought off or little cartoon characters ran around gobbling up dots.
“Hey there, little lady, want to play a game?” One of the players turned to leer at her as he finished his game. He was perhaps forty, married, she was sure, and looking for some action. She glanced at the video screen behind him as he lounged on the control panel.
“No, thanks. I’m just looking for someone.”
“I’ll help you look.” He chuckled, straightening to move toward her. “Why don’t we start looking on the dance floor?” He reached out to take her arm, and Shelley stepped back out of reach.
“No. I’m leaving now, anyway.” She spun around on her heel and hurried through the crowd toward the door, escaping into the parking lot with a sigh of relief. Joel was going to have a lot to answer for when she finally caught up with him!
The next two locations proved much the same: boisterous, rowdy crowds of beer and whiskey drinkers, rows of amusement games, protective bartenders and no sign of her quarry. How much longer was Joel going to string this game out?
By the time she reached the next place on the list, Shelley was getting to know the rules fairly well. She walked through the door and headed straight for the bar to announce her presence to the man behind it
“I’m Shelley Banning, and I’m looking for Joel Cassidy,” she said clearly, ignoring the interested stares from the two men sitting on the bar stools beside her.
“Been expectin’ you.” The bartender chuckled, wiping a glass on a cloth. “Have a look around. You won’t have no trouble here.”
By now Shelley knew better than to try to save herself some time by asking the man whether Joel was in the tavern. The bartenders were all playing on the opposite team. She turned her back to the bar and faced the roomful of dancers, drinkers and amusement-game players. The place was like most of the others she had been to this evening. Thick clouds of smoke hung in the air, bold glances swept her rounded figure and there were several offers to buy her a drink. Across the room under a hanging lamp there was a pool table and beyond it a bank of video games and pinball machines.
Automatically, she narrowed her eyes to peer through the smoky haze and scan the line of players for a lean, redheaded male. And then she caught her breath and stiffened. Halfway along the row of machines, the eerie glow of a video screen reflected a familiar red flame. Joel was here.
For a moment, Shelley simply stood quite still, not knowing what to do next. She had been full of plans for an angry confrontation. Her temper had been building since he had started her off on this crazy game of hide-and-seek, and she was sure her first words to him were going to make her sound like a first-class shrew. She’d had every intention of reading him the riot act before she gave him what he sought
But now she was frozen with suspense. With an effort of will, she pulled herself away from the bar and started toward the row of amusement machines. As she approached, her gaze glued to the man playing the video game in the middle of the row, her mind whirled. What was she going to say first? How hard was he going to make this for her?
She was about ten feet behind him when he apparently saw her reflection on the screen in front of him. Shelley came to a halt as he turned to face her, leaning back against the control panel of the game. For a few seconds, they faced each other in silence, and she was fiercely aware of the curious combination of satisfaction and hunger in the steel-blue eyes.
“Well, cowboy,” she drawled above the racket of the nearby machines, “have you had enough game playing tonight?”
. “Can’t say for sure,” he responded sardonically, eyes gleaming. “Game’s not quite over yet.”
“Take my word for it,” she told him with a cool assurance she was far from feeling. “For you, it’s over.”
“Yeah? Who won?”
Shelley swallowed, trying to maintain her air of nonchalance. She was aware of some of the interested glances being directed her way now. “Isn’t it obvious?”
“I like to see the final score spelled out very clearly,” Joel informed her evenly. He crossed his arms and waited, every inch of him singing with male challenge.
Shelley reacted to that challenge with a violent wave of emotion that seemed to span the spectrum of feminine response. Her chin came up, her hazel eyes flashed gold and her hands went to her hips in defiance.
“Joel Cassidy, you are the most annoying, aggravating, irritating man I have ever met in my life! You play games when the stakes are much too high, and then you have your own set of rules and expect me to play by them. You have run me ragged tonight chasing you from one damn bar to another. By rights I should empty that can of beer you’re holding over your red head! You have no right to push me, but you’re doing it, anyway. In fact, there are a lot of rights you seem to have assumed lately which you never asked for politely. Lucky for you I’m such a good-tempered, understanding, trusting woman or I would probably be trying to break that video game over your chauvinistic skull!”
“Trusting?” he interrupted her to question in a low, husky voice. The blue gaze was lighting once more with steel-turned-platinum. He didn’t move, but she could feel the tautness in him. It fairly sizzled across the space between them, enveloping her and feeding her own inner tension.
“Trusting!“ she repeated vengefully. “I trust you, Joel Cassidy. I would trust you to the ends of the earth. I will come and live with you if that’s what you want. But I warn you, I will not play tonight’s little game with you ever again! I have been in places I would normally never set foot in! I have breathed more cigarette smoke, seen more drunken cowboys, looked at more of those damn pinball and video games than I ever wish to encounter again in my life. You will come home with me now and stop this nonsense before I am forced to kick you where it will have some effect and drag you out by your heels. Do I make myself clearly understood?”
The platinum in his eyes was glowing with blue flame. The slow, lazily wicked grin was carving its way across his hard features, revealing the charmingly crooked tooth as Joel dropped his hands and straightened away from the video-game console. Shelley could feel the happiness in him, and it neutralized the frustrated temper in her. She stared at him as hungrily as he was staring at her, longing to throw herself into his arms.
“Oh, yes, Shelley, honey, you make yourself very well understood. I’ve told you all along that I understand you. Come and take me home. I’m tired of playing games tonight.”
He held out his arms, and Shelley hurled herself into them with a small cry of happiness and relief. She could hear the laughter and the teasing remarks being made all around her, but she buried her face in Joel’s blue work shirt and ignored them. His arms closed around her with a fierce possession that told her more about his own state of mind than words ever could have conveyed.
“My God, sweetheart, I was so afraid you wouldn’t come after me,” he rasped into her hair. “So afraid. Don’t worry, I won’t ever play this particular game again. Much too hard on a man’s nerves! Do you really want me? Really trust me? Completely?”
She raised her head, her eyes full of the truth. “Yes! Oh, yes, Joel. I’m accustomed to having the facts neatly arranged in front of me before I make sweeping statements, but I don’t need to see the numbers this time. I’m very sure of the important things tonight”
“Shelley!” He hugged her close amid the noise of the machines, the juke box and the raucous laughter. “Thank you, sweetheart! Thank you for that My God, woman, you’ve given me so much tonight, I don’t know how to even the score!”
Shelley’s arms tightened around his waist “You could get me out of here for starters,” she teased tenderly. And sometime in the future, she added with silent resolve, you can tell me that you love me as much as I love you.
He smiled with shaky humor. “You mean accountants aren’t prepared to rescue their clients from places like this?”
“We prefer to spend our time rescuing clients from the IRS,” she informed him in heartfelt tones as he loosened his hold on her and caught her wrist
He threw back his head and laughed. “Come along, Shelley, honey. I’m starving to death after all this excitement, and you must be just as hungry. Let’s go find us some food!” He forged a path through the crowd toward the door, lifting a hand in farewell to the grinning bartender, and in another moment they were safely outside in the parking lot.
“I’ll tell you what,” he said, walking her toward her car. “You drive straight home, and I’ll stop along the way for some carry-out tacos or a pizza. Okay?”
“Okay.” She smiled tremulously at him, not concerned with the food, only with the feelings she was experiencing. Then she got into her car without another word and started the engine.
The white Maserati pulled into her drive about twenty minutes after Shelley had arrived. She went to the door to meet him and found him carrying a large pizza.
“The Kitchen Sink,” he explained as her eyes went to the huge, flat box.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I ordered the Kitchen Sink. That’s the one with everything on it. Hungry?”
“No,” she said from force of habit even though she could feel the hunger pangs starting already. The carrot sticks she’d eaten hours before hadn’t lasted long, and she’d been exerting a great deal of energy since she’d eaten them. She eyed the box as he carried it through the door and on into the kitchen.
“Lucky for you I never take no for an answer from you,” he growled in soft laughter. “You’d starve to death.” He set the pizza down and began searching through the cupboards for plates and forks.
She watched him, unprotesting even when he cut her a huge slice and handed the plate across the counter to her. She loved him, Shelley thought She would have gone into a hundred more bars to find him. The realization was mind twisting.
Joel came around from behind the counter and smiled down into her bemused eyes as he led the way over to the table. Shelley was suddenly aware that he still looked a little dazed himself.
“So you trust me now, hmmm?” he questioned gently as they sat down.
“Yes. I trust you, Joel. You’re a clever businessman, and I think you could be quite ruthless under certain circumstances, but I don’t believe you’d use me. I don’t believe you would seduce me and try to bribe me and manipulate Ackerly through me.” She busied herself taking a large bite from the still-hot pizza.
“Even though I know the California group is interested in that land and even though I’ve never had serious objections to making the occasional half million?” he pressed, watching her eat with a certain satisfaction.
“Even though,” she agreed, nodding.
“I don’t think that last bit was very good English.” He chuckled.
“Accountants are more interested in numbers than grammar,” she told him blandly, taking another bite.
He grinned again, and for a moment there was an aura of male satisfaction about him. A couple of bites later, Joel broke the companionable silence to ask, “Did you have any trouble tonight?”
“You mean, was I accosted? Assaulted? Did I have to fend off heavy-handed cowboys who’d had too much to drink? Dragged out onto dance floors against my will?”
Joel’s pleasant expression went abruptly hard. “I left instructions for the bartenders to watch out for you!” he grated roughly.
Shelley blinked at him innocently.
“Damn it, Shelley, if anyone laid a hand on you, I’ll have his hide!”
Shelley relented. “Forget it, Joel. No one made too much of a pest out of himself. Everyone was playing by your rules tonight. Including me.”
He eyed her narrowly for a moment and then relaxed visibly. “Good.” He took another bite out of his pizza and chewed reflectively. “When can you move in with me?”
“As soon as you like.” She was truly in an accommodating mood tonight, Shelley thought wryly. Playing by his rules.
“Good,” he said again with great satisfaction. “We’ll arrange things tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow I’m going to be tied up all day with that Ackerly audit,” she reminded him. “It may take two or three days to find what I’m looking for. I shall probably be exhausted after work.”
“Too exhausted to worry about moving, huh?” he said blandly.
“Probably.” Shelley felt a tinge of wariness invade the pleasant, intimate atmosphere between them. She put down her slice of pizza and looked at him steadily. “But I will start packing tonight if that’s what you want, Joel. Practically speaking, it would be easier to wait until I’ve cleared up the Ackerly thing, but if you want me to come sooner, I will.”
His eyes cleared, and a small smile tugged at his lips. “That’s all right,” he returned offhandedly. “I’ll just move in with you until you’re ready to pack up and come live with me. Starting tonight”
She nodded silently, glancing down at her pizza, then back up again as he suddenly reached across the table and trapped her fingers beneath his large, competent hand. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, Shelley,” he explained very coolly. “I’ve said I do, and that’s the truth.”
“Then why…?”
“Because you mentioned something about a bribe,” he said simply. “Shelley, people who resort to bribes will sometimes resort to other methods of intimidation. I think it’s best that you don’t spend any more nights alone. I wish you’d told me right away about that phone call you got,” he added thoughtfully.
It was her turn to relax a little. “So you’re only moving in with me tonight to protect me from possible threats of violence and intimidation?” She chuckled.
“That’s about all I can protect you from tonight.” He grinned wickedly. “I took my shaving kit home this morning, and I’m afraid it’s still there.”
She grinned back at him, feeling inordinately light-hearted. “So much for your foresight and planning!”
“As it happens, you’re going to need all the rest you can get, anyway, for that audit tomorrow, aren’t you?” he retorted smoothly. “And something tells me we’ve both had enough exercise for one evening. Tonight we go to bed and go to sleep.”
“And tomorrow night?” she taunted, her eyes full of laughter.
“Tomorrow night I won’t have as much on my mind as I did tonight. I’ll remember the shaving kit!” he promised firmly.
Chapter 10
Joel was waiting for Shelley when she finally got home after the
first day of the massive audit. Taking one look at her drooping posture and exhausted eyes, he handed her a drink, fixed dinner and put her to bed. She curled in his arms and fell asleep as soon as her head touched the pillow. Her last thought before closing her eyes was a sense of wonder at the luxury of being cosseted by Joel Cassidy.
The second day of the audit went much the same as the first, but by the end of the day, Shelley knew she had found a thread. She told Joel as much as she put her feet on the recliner and accepted the drink he thrust into her hand.
“Tomorrow I’ll start pulling on it and see what unravels,” she murmured, and then proceeded to doze off as he fixed dinner. He woke her long enough to eat and then once more put her to bed like a child.
“I really could do this by myself,” she protested mildly as he undressed her and slipped the nightgown over her tousled head.
“My privilege,” he said smiling.
She was up at four-thirty the next morning to start the unraveling process. By ten o’clock, she and her team were certain they had an outline of the scam, and by noon she was presenting all the facts to a stunned Dean Ackerly.
That afternoon, Shelley arrived home on time, and although she was tired, she was not experiencing the exhaustion of the two previous days. Success and satisfaction lit her eyes as she came through the front door.
“Tell me all about it,” Joel ordered, handing her a drink and sinking into the chair across from her. “I can see you found what you were looking for!”
“And just in time, too. Much farther down the trail and nothing would have helped Ackerly! Not even another couple of hundred-thousand-dollar interest-free loans from you!” Shelley shook her head, still faintly disbelieving. “It was a complicated scheme by one of Dean’s most trusted managers. Thousands of dollars’ worth of merchandise was supposedly being shipped every few months to a customer who wasn’t paying his bills. In reality, the customer was involved in the scheme. He received the merchandise, turned around and disposed of it for cash, kept a percentage and sent the rest back to the manager.”
Green Fire Page 15
