In Bed with the Wild One & In Bed with the Pirate

by Julie Kistler

  He glanced away. “That’s not why I didn’t…make a move.”

  “Tyler,” she whispered, “I really like you—as a body, yes, but as a person, too. I feel a connection to you. And even if you won’t admit it, I know you feel the same way.”

  “Emily, I—”

  “No, don’t wreck it by saying guy stuff about me misunderstanding or this not being what I think it is or whatever you’re planning to say to brush me off.” She lifted her chin. “I know what I know.”

  He sighed, tipping his head down so that it rested on hers, raising his hands to frame her face. “You don’t know anything. But I’m going to give it to you straight. Your mother is a judge and your father is a senior partner at some fancy law firm and you and I live in different worlds. Do you think I like it that I can’t even pay your fare on a cable car?”

  “Oh, Tyler, that is so silly,” she countered. “I have plenty. You wouldn’t even believe how much—my grandmother left me this obscene trust fund because I’m the only girl in the family. I didn’t earn it—why should it matter to me?”

  “An obscene trust fund?” he repeated. “It’s even worse than I thought.”

  “You just don’t get it, do you? Do you know how many men I know with money? A ton. And I don’t want to sleep with any of them. And don’t,” she warned, “start that stuff about Pollyanna taking a walk on the wild side. That is so not true, and insulting, too.”

  “Yeah, well, I can’t see what else you see in me.”

  She searched his features for a clue. “You’re joking, right? You’re poor, so you have nothing to offer? What is this, 1912?”

  “Emily, it isn’t just the money.” He broke away, dropping his hands from her. “This isn’t a good time for me. My life is a mess. I can’t do this.”

  She bit her lip. “You know, you’re right. Your life is a mess and this isn’t the best time to be throwing extra complications at you.”

  “Good. You agree.”

  “Uh-huh.” She took his hand and started to tug him down the pier in the direction they had been traveling. “Which is why you want us to go wherever it was you were heading, follow whatever clue it was you found at The Flesh Pit, and run Slab or Shanda or the money to ground.”

  “That is actually not a bad idea.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe I just said that.”

  “You’ll get used to it,” she said cheerfully. “Here’s the plan. We’ll do exactly what it was both of us originally intended, which is to locate this mythical stash of money and get Slab back to Chicago with it. And once we’re there, with your problems neatly solved, when you see how well you fit into my life, you can stop moaning about different worlds and all that nonsense.” She paused. “So what clue did you find? Where are we headed?”

  “How did you know I found a clue?”

  “Like, duh. Why else would you be taking cable cars and hiking down piers?” She waited impatiently. “I suppose you could be planning to toss yourself into the bay because you’re so bummed about our doomed love affair, but I don’t think so.”

  He actually cracked a smile at that one.

  “Come on, ’fess up. Did you talk to Slab? Or Shanda? Did one of them tell you something?”

  “Neither of them was there,” he said coolly, jamming a hand into one jacket pocket and leaving it there. “There was police tape all over the place—I’m guessing from last night’s ‘domestic disturbance’—but the door was still bashed in, so I just ducked under the tape and looked around.”

  “And you saw something? What did you see?” she prompted.

  “This.” He pulled his hand out of his pocket, revealing a small photograph. “It was on the table near the door. Shanda had framed pictures of herself with baseball players, politicians, even one with Clint Eastwood. But also this. I took it out of the frame.”

  Eagerly Emily scrutinized the photo. But all she saw was Slab, looking very broad in a Hawaiian print shirt, grinning behind Shanda, who was squished into teeny white shorts and a tank top, both of which emphasized her unnatural curves. They were posed against the side of an ordinary-looking boat—what she thought might be called a cabin cruiser—docked at a pier.

  “Okay,” she concluded, “so it’s a picture of Slab and Shanda with a boat. So what?”

  “Look at the name of the boat.”

  “Sweet Shanda,” she read. “That’s very nice. Somebody—presumably Slab—liked her well enough to name a boat after her. Although why, I couldn’t tell you. She seemed like a real snot to me.”

  Tyler’s gaze measured her. “Do you remember exactly what Slab said to me in Chicago, about where he left the money?”

  “Hmm…” Emily happened to have an excellent memory for details. She cast her mind back to the Rainbow Rest-O-Rant. “He said he’d left the money with his dear, darling Shanda and that he was going back to get it and he would take her apart with his bare hands if he had to.”

  “Wrong.” Tyler smiled. “He said he left the money with sweet Shanda, and he would take her apart with his bare hands if he had to. Sweet Shanda. Not Shanda the girlfriend, but Sweet Shanda the boat.”

  “It’s a boat? He hid the money on a boat?” Emily turned to Tyler for confirmation.

  “I think that’s exactly what he did.”

  “Then what are we waiting for? It shows the pier number right there, over Slab’s ear. Come on!”

  “Hold on a sec,” Tyler interceded. “If it were still at that pier, Slab would’ve already found it. When I was there, he was grilling Shanda about stuff he’d left behind, and she told him she’d thrown out or sold everything of his. But I think she just moved the boat. Look on the back.”

  “There’s a number.” Emily glanced up quickly. “But that doesn’t mean that it’s a pier number. It’s low enough that it could be anything from her IQ to what she charges for a lap dance.”

  Caught off guard, Tyler laughed at the zinger. “Why, Emily, you’re not as kind as you look.”

  “I try.”

  “Anyway, it’s worth a look to see if that’s where Sweet Shanda is docked, don’t you think, partner?”

  “Well, then,” Emily said with a smile, liking the sound of that partner thing, “I guess we’re going boating.”

  8

  EMILY BLINKED. There it was, bobbing gently in the water, floating right in front of her. It looked bigger in person than it had in the picture. Or maybe on film it had just been dwarfed by the enormous Slab standing in front of it.

  But it was definitely the same boat. And it still had Sweet Shanda painted in a swirly script on the hull. The rest of the paint was peeling and the boat seemed to have faded into genteel disrepair, but the words Sweet Shanda looked practically new.

  “The one thing she’s kept in good shape is her name,” Emily commented. “Why am I not surprised?”

  But Tyler was ahead of her. Carrying his jacket over one shoulder, he was already on board, poking around into the life preserver bin, examining corners and crevices for any likely treasure trove. When he moved to try to jimmy open the door to the lower level, he turned back. “Are you coming?”

  “Well, okay.” But Emily hesitated. She didn’t have a whole lot of experience with boats.

  “Just get on, will you?”

  “I’m coming. Where you lead, I follow,” she said lightly.

  Tyler had the door open by the time she gingerly picked her way across the deck in her wedgies, and she followed him down the steps to what she would have called the cabin area. It was mostly just an open room, full of accents and gewgaws, done up in knotty pine, fake thatching and coils of rope, a` la Gilligan’s Island. There was a funny little kitchenette and counter built into one corner, a big bed draped in a ghastly red velvet spread on the opposite side, a tiny standing-room-only bathroom, and a couple of cabinets and closets. Not exactly a posh yacht from a James Bond movie.

  Besides, there was a musty, neglected feeling to this place, as if no one had taken Sweet Shanda out for a ride in a
good, long while. “Poor Slab,” Emily murmured. “He said this was the best time he ever had. And now look at it.”

  Tossing his leather jacket onto the counter, Tyler immediately opened the kitchen cabinets and drawers, even going so far as to jab at the garbage disposal.

  Emily sat on the edge of the bed, but jumped back up and dropped her purse when it undulated underneath her. “Waterbed,” she exclaimed. “Didn’t expect that.”

  Tyler didn’t respond; he was busy pulling cleaning supplies out from under the sink.

  “You really think he would hide bundles of money somewhere obvious like under the sink?” she inquired.

  “This is Slab we’re talking about. There’s no telling where he would put anything.”

  “Okay, well, maybe.” Considering, Emily chewed her lip and scanned the ceiling and the walls as Tyler moved on to the closets. He tossed some blankets and pillows out onto the floor, but didn’t seem to find anything of interest in there.

  She didn’t really know what she was looking for. Some panel or board that looked different? There was always a mysterious hidey-hole or a secret passage in the books, and if you turned the right andiron or pressed the right bookend, voilà!

  In the absence of andirons and bookends, she felt her sleuthing possibilities were dramatically reduced.

  “Maybe if I had a crowbar,” she said out loud.

  “Crowbar?” But Tyler was gazing at the ceiling. “Uh-oh.”

  “Uh-oh?”

  But his expression said it all. With a sinking feeling, Emily realized she heard it, too. Footsteps. Heavy footsteps. Up on deck. She gulped. They had company.

  She could see that she and Tyler were thinking along the same lines. No way to jump overboard from a cabin with no windows and only one door. No way to make a stand or prepare an ambush when they had no weapons and the heavy footsteps likely did.

  Before she had a chance to say a word, Tyler grabbed her and shoved her into the closet, up against a life preserver.

  “Don’t you think this is the first place they’ll look?” she whispered, clutching his shirt so she could pull him in with her.

  But he backed in far enough to scoop up some blankets and a pillow, and he wedged them between him and the door before he slowly, quietly, slid it shut. Emily got the idea. Camouflage. If anyone opened the door, they would see extra bedding, not people. Of course, all they had to do was move the protective cover, and she and Tyler would be dead ducks.

  Better not to think about that.

  Right now, she concentrated on trying not to breathe or make a sound. There wasn’t enough room in the minuscule compartment to stand up, plus she had the hard edge of a life preserver stuck in her back. So they crouched uncomfortably, forced to find a way to fit various body parts into the same cramped space, doing their best not to touch anything too intimate.

  Tyler’s arms crept around her. He eased her over into his lap, a centimeter at a time, so that he could balance them both more steadily and not risk anyone getting clumsy and creating any thumps or scuffling noises. She understood that. But this way, she and her miniskirt were sort of half riding his knee, with his hands sliding over her bare back and his mouth an inch from her neck. She could feel his hot breath puff against her collarbone. And it tickled.

  Oh, dear.

  It was very stuffy in here. Very close. Very hot.

  She began to see stars in the periphery of her vision. She told herself it was because she wasn’t getting enough oxygen. But she knew better.

  It was because Tyler’s hands grazed her waist, her back, her leg. Because she could feel his warm, muscled chest and the steady jump of his heartbeat through the thick cotton of his T-shirt. Because she couldn’t stop herself from closing her eyes and hanging on tighter and leaning in closer, rubbing her cheek against the top of his head, her mouth against his soft hair.

  In this situation, one little halter top and a brief miniskirt weren’t nearly enough protection. Too many parts of him were touching too many parts of her, and she didn’t know what to do.

  What if I faint and fall over and whoever is out there hears it and I give us away? she thought desperately. What if I don’t faint and I have to be conscious for every single second of this torture and whoever is out there never goes away and I’m stuck here forever, with him but not with him, intimate but not intimate enough?

  She wanted to scream.

  She didn’t. Instead, she stayed where she was, scrunched into the smallest closet she’d ever seen, perspiring, strung out, on the verge of a panic attack, clinging to Tyler for dear life.

  Clump. Clump. Clump.

  They’re coming down the stairs. She read the same thought in Tyler’s eyes.

  A male voice that sounded familiar jeered, “Guess we beat ’em to it, huh? Clear sailing, huh?”

  Sluggo, she mouthed to Tyler. He nodded.

  And then another man laughed snidely. Could it be Mack? Were the two thugs in cahoots? “First we gotta find the stash. Then we go sailin’.”

  It certainly sounded like him. Great. Both bad guys, together and in one place. Double the fun.

  “Let’s start with the floor, huh?” the first one put in. “You got the crowbar?”

  Oh, sure, they had a crowbar. Huddled in the closet, she winced when she heard the crack of splintering wood. Sweet Shanda wasn’t going to be worth much when these guys were done with her.

  This was followed by huffing and puffing and a great deal of cursing, some of it in combinations and phrases Emily never knew existed. Wow, they certainly knew how to separate the men from the boys when it came to swear words.

  As their labors progressed with more grunts of effort and even more swearing, the men’s voices began to rise. “It’s got to be there!” hollered the one they had identified as Mack. “Jimmy, what the hell is wrong with you?”

  “It ain’t my fault, boss,” a third voice chimed in. “I pulled out half the floor by now. And it just ain’t here.”

  “Could be in the wall,” Sluggo announced. “Maybe like a safe or somethin’. You want we should start smashin’ in the walls?”

  “What’s the matter with you? There ain’t no safe here.”

  His words were followed by an audible slap. Now she was sure—that had to be Mack the Knife. The snarly, ill-tempered attitude fit him to a tee.

  “You half-wits got taken for a ride,” he bellowed. “Again! You said you followed O’Toole and his girlfriend here. So where did they go? Why ain’t they here?”

  Emily got a queasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. We were followed?

  Outside, Mack continued his tirade. “Why do you suppose they ain’t here and we are? ’Cause they led us here for nothing, while they’re probably rolling in our dough at the real stash right now.”

  No, we aren’t that smart, Emily thought. We were too busy worrying about our love lives to notice that we were being tailed.

  “This boat thing was just a…what do you call that? Like a…what the hell do you call that?”

  Red herring? Emily supplied inside the closet. Ruse? Misdirection? But she had no compunctions about letting them suffer without her vocabulary help.

  “They played us for saps,” Mack said finally. “Again.”

  Sluggo began to mutter dire threats, kicking something as he did. “I oughta’ve strangled that broad when I had the chance.”

  Emily swallowed.

  “All right already.” It was Mack again. “Let’s be sure about this. We didn’t look under the bed. Move the damn bed. It would be just like Slab to hide his stash under the bed so he’d know it was there every time he made it with what’s-her-name.”

  “Shanda,” the one they’d called Jimmy responded helpfully. “I’d like to make it with her. Don’t run across girls who own their own strip joints very often. Made in the shade, I’ll tell you.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Just move the damn bed, will you?”

  “Uh, boss?”

  “Yeah, yeah. What?”

&nbs
p; “The bed—it’s a water bed. It don’t move.”

  “Yeah, well, stomp around on top of it, then. Just in case the loot’s inside it.”

  Somebody guffawed as somebody else followed the order. There was the odd sound of a large body sloshing itself against rippling water, again and again.

  “Go, Jimmy!” Sluggo began to wheeze with laughter. “Body surf that bed, baby!”

  Oh, great. Now they were playing games while they trashed the place.

  Meanwhile, Emily’s leg was going to sleep. Yet if she moved it even a fraction, she would be rubbing it up and down Tyler’s thigh.

  So why not rub it up and down Tyler’s thigh for real? Why not tune out the nonsense on the other side of their cozy little closet and do what she really wanted to do?

  This was a nightmare. How much longer could she bear listening to those stooges and their idiotic conversation, all the while yearning for Tyler, breathing with him, melting into him? She suddenly had a mental image of him as a burger sizzling on a grill, and she was nothing but a big hunk of cheese.

  “Hey, boss, what’s this?” The water-bed surfing noises broke off, and Jimmy’s voice rose, sounding utterly mystified. “It’s a purse, boss. Right here by the bed. Whose you think it is? It’s got a funny clasp, though. I never could do this girly stuff. Do you want me to bust it open, boss?”

  If her entire body hadn’t already been on red alert inside the closet, Emily would have cried. Her purse. She’d left it by the bed. How stupid are you, Emily?

  “And there’s a jacket over there on the counter, too!” Sluggo yelled.

  Okay, so she wasn’t the only one. Was it a good thing that Tyler had also blown it? Or did it really matter whose fault it was, now that discovery was imminent? She hugged his head, bracing herself.

  “Whose ya think this stuff is, huh?” asked Sluggo, as obtuse and thickheaded as ever.

  “Whose do you think? It’s that damn O’Toole’s,” Mack growled. “See the slash in the sleeve? That’s where I cut him. And the purse has gotta be the girl’s. Leave it alone, Jimmy. We don’t need it open. We know whose it is.”