by Nancy Warren
Much as he was tempted to tell her to get away from Mr. Slick, and fast, he couldn’t take the chance that he might somehow intercept the message.
He cursed.
If only she’d told him where she was going.
Fortunately her best friend Julia’s business card was still in his wallet from when she’d first met him.
To his relief she answered right away. “First Impressions, Julia sp—”
“Julia, it’s Rob. Hailey’s in trouble.”
“What?”
“I need to know where she is.”
There was a pause and he got the feeling Hailey was one of those women who tell their BFF everything. Which was confirmed when Julia said carefully, “I’m sure if Hailey wanted you to know where she is she’d have told you.”
Once more he had to tamp down the surge of emotions that threatened to choke him and make him do something stupid like scream at Julia.
“Listen. The guy she’s with? I got a bad feeling about him. I snapped a few photos and sent them to a friend of mine who has connections. Turns out he’s a real bad dude. We’re talking international criminal here.”
“Rob? Have you been drinking?”
“No. I’m serious. Please. Your friend is in real danger.”
“I don’t know.”
“I’m a hard-news reporter. I have instincts honed by years of reporting on guys like him. And I have connections.”
“Maybe I could just call her.”
“I tried that. Her phone’s off.”
He heard her curse, knew she was worried about Hailey, but not sure whether it was her date or Rob who was the real problem.
How could Rob help her? Every second that ticked by was another second Hailey was at the scumbag’s mercy. He said, “I’m going to give you the number of my editor at World Week. He’ll confirm what I’m saying.”
“How will I know it’s really him?”
“You can look him up on Google!” Frustration careened through him. “Here’s the number.”
“Okay. I’m sorry to be difficult, but I have to look out for my friend.”
“Then make sure you do. She’s in real danger.”
* * *
“WHAT’S UP?” John rolled over, lazily stroked Julia’s back.
She snuggled up against him, glad to have his comfort and warmth. “That was the weirdest phone call.” She relayed what Rob had said to her.
“You don’t believe him?” he asked, frowning.
“I don’t know. I don’t want to cause Hailey any embarrassment.”
She called her friend’s cell. As Rob had told her, it was off. She left a message. “Hailey. It’s Julia. Hope your date’s going well. Call me the second you get this. Love you.”
Then she rapidly texted a similar message.
“I didn’t tell Rob where she is in case he’s a crazy-ass stalker.”
“What if he’s telling the truth?”
She nibbled her lower lip. “He gave me his editor’s phone number in New York. How do I even know it’s his editor?”
“Seems like a pretty elaborate plan to get to a woman he sees almost every day anyway.”
“I know. I just...” She turned to him, her new lover, and found there was something so reassuring and solid about him. It was wonderful to have a man she could trust. “The story seems so far-fetched. How many times does a girl end up on a date with a—a—terrorist?”
He drew her in close and kissed her cheek. “It seems to me that if there’s even the smallest chance of it being true you need to warn her.”
Julia jumped out of bed, grabbed her panties and stepped into them. “You’re right. Come on, get dressed.”
“I had plans for round two.”
She dimpled at him. “Later. Right now you are taking me out to dinner at a very expensive new restaurant.”
“Might this be the expensive new restaurant where your friend is on her date?”
“Yes.”
He reached for his shirt. “So, we tell her she might want to ditch the date.”
“You got it.”
“And then round two?”
“And then round two.”
“Are you going to tell Rob?”
“I don’t think so. His instincts tell him this guy’s bad news. Fair enough. But I have instincts, too, and they tell me that Rob crashing Hailey’s date is a terrible idea.”
* * *
HAILEY BELIEVED IN the power of positive thinking. And that meant that if she was determined to have a good time, she ought to have a good time.
The hollow feeling in her stomach must simply be hunger.
She pinned the bright smile back on her face as she listened to her date grill the wine waiter—no, sommelier, as he’d made a point to call him—about a certain vintage.
She suspected he was trying to impress her. She knew she should be flattered, but actually she was bored.
She didn’t care about the microclimate where the grapes grew or the weather that summer or the phases of the moon when the fruit was harvested.
She liked to go to a restaurant, pick something that sounded good to eat, maybe have some wine and get on with it. She’d never been out with someone who took the menu apart and put it back together again and then approached the wine list—in this case an entire book—like a battle of wits between him and the poor guy who simply wanted to take their wine order and move on.
This whole thing had been a bad idea. There was a reason, she reminded herself, why she never got involved with clients.
Gastronome, the trendy new eatery, was busy, but not crowded. The decor was sleek and modern. Her date had insisted on a table in a shadowed corner. “More private,” he told her, touching her wrist. She’d smiled politely but didn’t want to be private with him. She didn’t even know him.
Once they were seated, he’d scanned the restaurant and she could have cursed Rob for putting stupid suspicions in her head. So what if Dennis preferred a dark corner, sat with his back to the wall and checked out the place with the vigilance of a spy who might need to make a quick getaway?
He was probably merely admiring the decor.
“Tell me why you chose Seattle?” she asked him once he’d finally approved the wine and she’d agreed with him that it was a very good vintage. As if she knew. Or cared.
“I’m ready to settle down,” he said, relaxing back into his chair, sipping his wine. “This seems like a great city. It’s cosmopolitan, but close to the outdoors. I like all the recreational opportunities. The climate’s good. Mild.”
She pointed to the picture window behind them where raindrops chased each other. “Except for all the rain.”
“Yeah. First thing I’m going to do when I buy Bellamy House is hire an architect. I want a garage large enough for three cars.”
“You’re planning to tear the house down?”
“The value’s in the land. And most of it is wasted on gardens and those trees. I’m going to build a place that has all the bells and whistles. Heated floors in all the bathrooms. Entire place wired for top-of-the-line electronics, home theater room, a gym.” He sipped his wine thoughtfully, spinning the stem of the glass so the liquid swirled. “Temperature-controlled wine cellar, too.”
“Wow. You have big plans.”
“I’ve worked hard in my life. It’s time to enjoy the rewards.” He leaned closer to her. “And I’m definitely interested in finding someone to share my life with.”
The gesture should have been sexy, but there was something calculated about it. He was good-looking, obviously rich, and someone who seemed to want what she wanted. A stable home life. Permanence.
She knew already there wouldn’t be a second date.
And she strongly suspected there wouldn’t be a home sale either. Once she told Rob about his plans to knock down Bellamy House she knew he’d never sell to this man.
In truth she didn’t want Bellamy House to be redeveloped either. She loved the place. She’d grown to apprec
iate its quirky charm. And what of the garden where Agnes Neeson’s ashes rested? Was Rob’s grandmother going to end up underneath a home theater? The very notion was an outrage.
She glanced surreptitiously at her watch, wondering how soon she could eat her dinner and get out of here.
“You look so beautiful tonight,” Dennis crooned. “That blue dress really brings out your eyes.”
“Thank you.” After the shopping trip with Julia had ended up in a long lunch and girl talk, she’d decided to forego a new outfit and wear one of her favorites. The blue silk was elegant without being overtly sexy. Dennis was a client, after all.
“And you’re tall. I like a tall woman. I’m tall so we look good together.”
Had he actually said that? And did she want a laundry list of obvious compliments?
She recalled the way Rob looked at her. He didn’t gush about her eyes but his expression as he gazed at her made her feel beautiful.
Dennis Thurgood, by contrast, covered her in compliments the way a baker might cover a cake in sticky-sweet frosting. However, his eyes didn’t warm when they looked at her. If anything he seemed to be calculating. How many years until her skin wrinkled? How well would she keep her slim figure after childbirth? She couldn’t shake the notion that she was being studied and evaluated like the wine he’d chosen. Or the house he was planning to buy to raze and rebuild.
No, she thought, she really didn’t want to be one of his possessions, like the original art he’d boasted of, the cars he’d described that would fill his garage and the rest of his carefully chosen possessions.
She wondered how she’d ever found him interesting.
And how soon she could make her escape.
20
ROB STOOD IN THE RAIN. Behind him the door of the bar opened periodically letting somebody in or out, along with a burst of bar noise. Once he heard a cheer.
He willed his cell to ring.
It remained stubbornly silent.
Julia should have figured out by now that he was telling the truth. Why hadn’t she called him to tell him where Hailey was?
A cab pulled up and a young couple in jeans and raincoats made a run for the entrance. Before the cab drove away, Rob hailed it. Ran to the door and opened it. “You know the city well?”
The driver was between fifty and sixty with stubbled cheeks, a ball cap pulled low and eyes that had seen it all. “Yeah.”
“What’s the hot new restaurant in town?”
The guy shrugged. “Depends what you’re looking for.”
Rob climbed into the back of the cab. At least while he waited for his phone to ring, he could be doing something. “I’m meeting a woman at a restaurant and I can’t remember the name of it.” He held up his hands as if he were a typical, clueless dude.
“That sucks. She’s waiting for you?”
“I think so.”
The cabbie pulled out into traffic. “Why don’t you call her?”
“I tried. Her phone’s turned off. She’s going to be pissed if I don’t get there soon.”
“Do you know anything about this place?”
He tried to think like a hardened criminal trying to pass as a normal guy. More than that, a catch. Rob recalled the expensive car the guy had rented, the designer duds, the Italian loafers. “Best restaurant in town that’s also fairly new.”
The driver reeled off a few names. Since he’d never heard the name of the restaurant they were of no use to Rob. “Of those, which one’s the most expensive?”
“Oh,” the driver said, catching his eye in the rearview mirror. “She’s one of those women.”
He shook his head. “You know, she’s really not.”
“Well, I’d say it’s down to two. Gastronome or Luminous. Both are high-end. The first one I’ve heard has better food. Luminous is showier.”
“Luminous. Let’s try that one.”
“You got it.”
They headed downtown and hit traffic. Rob cursed every vehicle, every gnarl of construction, every fool who should be home and not out clogging the streets. Sweat crawled down his back as he imagined all the things a thug like Dennis Thurgood was capable of.
When they didn’t move through an intersection in the space of two traffic lights, he banged his fist into his palm. “Come on!”
“This girl’s really got to you.”
“Yeah.”
“You planning to propose tonight or something?”
As he sat there, pulled to knots by anxiety over this woman, Rob waited for the horror of the notion of marriage to sink in. It didn’t. Instead he was struck by the rightness of the idea.
She belonged to him. He knew his famous instincts had been right about her date tonight, but what his famous instincts had forgotten to reveal was that he was miserable with jealousy, and that he and he alone, should be wining and dining Hailey. Wooing her—and there’s a term his grandmother would have liked. Marrying her.
Now, all he had to do was find her, get her out of the clutches of a dangerous man and prove to her that he was the right man.
And he was determined to do that, if it took the rest of his life.
“I’m planning to marry her. If she’ll have me.” And the idea didn’t stick in his throat. He had a book deal now. He could afford to spend more time at home.
After about ten million years of crawling through traffic, they finally arrived outside Luminous. “Hang here for just a sec,” he snapped as he bolted from the cab.
He yanked open a heavy glass door, dashed inside, and knew almost instantly that he’d guessed wrong. The place was too brightly lit, and if a man had to make a quick exit, it was going to be difficult with all the columns and gold mirrors and what not.
“Just looking for a friend,” he said as he jogged past the maître d’ and in less than two minutes he was jogging back out. Back into the cab. “Nope. Let’s try the other place.”
They crawled back into heavy traffic. He groaned.
“How far is the other place?” he asked after five more minutes had moved at glacial speed and the cab had traveled ten feet.
“Three blocks that way.” The driver pointed to his left.
“Okay. I’ll walk it.”
“Likely be faster.”
He paid the guy and hopped out, heading in the direction indicated. Run a mile in six? The way his adrenaline was pumping he’d do it in four. He didn’t care that his leg was sore. Didn’t care rain was stinging his eyes and blurring his vision, didn’t care that passersby glanced at him as though he was deranged.
He ran.
His leg burned, his lungs burned, every cell in his body pushed him forward. He had to get to her. Had to.
Common sense told him she couldn’t be in any real danger, but common sense had no control over his gut instinct to get to her fast.
He jogged around a couple holding hands under matching umbrellas, dashed across a street against the light and got a screeching horn as a dark car seemed to come out of nowhere and slam on its brakes.
The driver rolled down the window and cursed fluently. He waved—in a kind of acknowledgment, apology, and I don’t have time to stop, this is an emergency way—and kept running.
* * *
HAILEY WONDERED IF she’d ever been on a less successful date. Neither the exquisite food, nor the fancy wine, nor the discreet decor and exceptional service could change the fact that she didn’t like her dining companion. He was boastful, rude to those he considered inferior, like the waiter, who looked as though he’d like to carve out her date’s liver with a butter knife, and so full of sugary compliments to her that her teeth were starting to ache.
When they’d first arrived and been shown to their seats she’d surreptitiously scanned the place to see if there was anyone she recognized or anyone famous. But there was no one. So she was beyond surprised when an extremely familiar voice said, “Oh, my gosh, what a surprise!”
She glanced up.
“Julia!” If anyone was surprised,
it was she. She’d told Julia not three hours ago when they’d had a wardrobe consultation, where she was going. Julia had declared her envy but made no mention of eating at the same restaurant tonight.
She wasn’t even dressed for it. Julia, who always gowned herself in dramatic fashion, was wearing the same skirt and top she’d worn to work. Her lipstick was worn off and she had a bad case of bedhead. Her companion wasn’t much better. He’d thrown a blazer over a denim shirt that was buttoned wrong, and he sported one blue sock and one brown.
Both of them had strange expressions on their faces. “Is something wrong?” she asked.
“No, of course not,” Julia said, fake-casual. “I just—”
“Are these people your friends?” her date demanded.
“Yes. This is Julia Atkinson. The woman who staged Bellamy House. And her friend.” She held out her hand. “I’m sorry, I’ve never met you. I’m Hailey.”
“John. Pleasure.” When she shook his hand, he squeezed. The guy either had some kind of neurological problem or he was trying to warn her about something. Based on the bizarre way these two were dressed and acting, she went with the latter.
When they were both introduced to her date, he sent them his bland smile and said, “Please. Join us.”
“This is a table for two,” she said, but he actually snapped his fingers at their waiter. “Two more chairs. Our friends will be joining us.”
“Oh, no. Really...” Julia began.
“They probably want to be alone,” she suggested.
“Nonsense. I insist. Dinner is my treat.” As though money was everything. Or nothing.
They hovered, and then Julia said, “Could I talk to you for a minute in the bathroom?”
“Of cou—”
“Oh, I don’t think that’s a good idea at all,” her date said. Still smiling, but with his teeth locked together. He put a hand on her arm to stop her from moving.
Hailey had had enough. Enough of being polite to this turkey, of spending time with a man she wasn’t interested in, of men in general. She glared at her date. “Please take your hand off my arm.”
