“Yeah,” Pete said. “But even if the odds are one in a million, why take that risk?” And the transcript she’d written from the last phone call had really bothered him. His gut reaction was that there was something to worry about here. It couldn’t hurt to err on the side of caution.
“There’s better than a one-in-a-million chance that I’ll be killed in a traffic accident, isn’t there?” Annie said. “But I take that risk every day.”
Pete was silent, just watching her as they sat in the car. What was he supposed to tell her? “I got a bad feeling about this,” he finally said.
She smiled. “You and Han Solo.”
He blinked. “What?”
“Star Wars,” she explained. “Didn’t you see that movie?”
“Yeah?”
“Well, that was what Han Solo kept saying,” she said, then drawled, “‘I got a bad feeling about this, Chewie.’” She laughed at the expression on his face. “Lighten up, Taylor, will you?”
“If memory serves me, Solo’s premonition was on the money,” Pete pointed out. “His ship was tractor beamed into the death star, right?”
“Yeah, well, you win some and you lose some,” Annie said with a smile. “And they won in the end, when it really mattered.”
Pete was watching her, and she looked back at him, examining his face as carefully. There was a small scar interrupting the line of his left eyebrow, but other than that, his features were the closest thing to perfection Annie had ever seen. His nose was straight and just the right size for his face. His eyes were large, with thick, long lashes that would put any mascara company to shame. They were framed by cheekbones of exotic proportions, making him not merely good-looking, but stunningly, dangerously handsome. His lips were neither too thick nor too thin, and sensuously shaped. But he held them far too tightly, giving himself a serious, almost grim expression. Although his hair was cut too short, it was dark and luxuriant. If it had been another few inches longer, Annie would have been sorely tempted to run her fingers through it. As it was, its length served to remind her who he was, and why he was here.
But looking into his eyes was like staring into outer space on a moonless night. Dark, endless, mysterious, exciting. With a hope and promise for adventure, and a consuming, beckoning pull.
Annie wondered why he didn’t try to kiss her. As soon as the thought popped into her mind, she berated herself. Kissing her wasn’t in his job description. She was a job, not a date.
On the other hand, there was no denying this attraction between them. Annie had seen it in his eyes before, just a flash here and there, but enough to make her catch her breath. It was there now as he looked at her—a hint of slow burning embers of desire, ready to leap into flames at the slightest encouragement.
A significant part of her wanted to give him that encouragement. But she’d had a relationship based on sex before, and it hadn’t lasted. Shoot, wasn’t her aversion to casual sex the reason she hadn’t gone to bed with God’s gift to women, Nicholas York? Except, as attractive as Nick was, he couldn’t hold a candle to Pete. It had nothing to do with physical appeal—Nick was as handsome as Pete, but in a golden blond, blue-eyed way. In fact, with Nick’s easy smile and cheerful facade, many women would find him the more attractive of the two men. But Annie could trust Nick only about as far as she could throw him. Sometimes she wondered if deception was a sport for him, or maybe a way of life.
Pete Taylor was mysterious, but her instincts told her that the man was honest. If pressed, he might lie, but it certainly wouldn’t be a game to him. Not the way it would be for Nick.
And Pete Taylor wasn’t entirely selfish. Or unreliable. Or as unfaithful as they come….
Of course, she hadn’t realized Nick was any of those things when she first met him. And even though her instincts told her Pete was good and kind and honest, her instincts had been wrong before.
No matter how strong the chemistry was between them, Annie wasn’t going to do anything rash or stupid. At least not intentionally, she told herself with an inward smile. Pete was going to be hanging around for nearly two months. That was plenty of time for them to get to know each other, to become friends. And after they were friends, if she still felt this nearly irresistible gravitational pull toward him, well, that’s when she’d do something about it.
“You know what I think?” she finally said.
Silently, still watching her, Pete shook his head.
He didn’t try to speak because he wasn’t sure he could utter a word. In fact, Pete wasn’t sure he could move. Somehow, during the last few minutes, the interior of the car had shrunk. Without either of them moving a muscle, they were now so close that all he’d have to do was lean forward to kiss her.
Pete forced himself to look into her eyes, not at her mouth. Not at her soft moist lips…
He had to get out of this car, or he was going to do something stupid. But he couldn’t get out, because just looking into her eyes had turned him on so much, he couldn’t even stand up without embarrassing himself. Damn, what was wrong with him? He felt seventeen again, and desperately out of control.
“I think the FBI is behind this whole thing,” Annie was saying. She climbed out of the car, then leaned down, sticking her head through the open door. “I think they made those phone calls and threw that rock through my window. I think this is just more of their intimidation technique.”
Pete’s face was expressionless. “I guess you think I’m FBI, too.”
“Are you?”
He met her eyes squarely. “No,” he said. “No, I’m not.”
She nodded, her eyes never leaving his face. “This is stupid. You know, I have no reason to, but I actually believe you.” A wry smile turned up one corner of her mouth. “I guess I sound pretty paranoid, huh? Come on, Han Solo, let’s go inside.”
Pete slowly climbed out of the car, and stood looking at her across the roof. He felt as if he were balancing on top of eggshells. So far he was okay, but he had to take a step, and it had better be a careful one….
“It must be rough,” he said, “when no one believes you.”
“Damn straight,” she said.
“Tell me about the whole art-theft conspiracy mess,” he said. “Maybe I can help.”
She was looking at him, her blue eyes wide and vulnerable. Was she involved? He didn’t have a clue. But maybe she’d tell him about it. Trust me, Annie, Pete thought. Trust me, trust me, trust me—
“Can you help make the FBI believe that I’m innocent?” she asked almost wistfully. Then she shook her head. “I’m innocent, but I can’t prove it, so I’m being hounded. Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty, Taylor? That’s what I’d like to know.”
She glanced at the terminal, then at her wristwatch. “MacLeish said air freight is only open ’til three. We better hurry.”
Pete watched her walk briskly toward the low brick building. Did he believe her? He wanted to.
Slowly he followed her into the airport terminal, watching the life in her quick step, the unconscious sexiness in the sway of her slim hips.
Yeah, he wanted to believe her, because he wanted her.
Normally he didn’t allow sex to complicate things. Sex was…sex.
But he liked Annie. He really, truly liked her. And, strange as it might seem, he didn’t sleep with women that he liked. Unless, of course, it was a totally mutual, honest relationship.
Well, they had the mutual part covered—Pete had seen the reflection of his own desire in her eyes. But honest? Mentally, he sounded the loser buzzer. Not much honesty here, at least not on his side of the relationship.
No, there was no way on earth that he was going to sleep with her. Even if she came to him and begged, he wouldn’t.
Yeah, and my mother’s the queen of England, he thought morosely.
PETE WATCHED ANNIE SIGN ALL the papers releasing the valuable package into her custody. He slid the box closer to the edge of the air freight counter and lifted it. It was heav
ier than he’d imagined, he thought, frowning, and much too ungainly to carry with only one arm.
“We’re going to need someone to carry this out to the car,” he said to the man behind the counter.
Annie looked at him in surprise. “It’s not that heavy,” she said.
Pete actually looked embarrassed. “Yeah, well, I have this policy of never carrying anything that ties up both my hands at once. I need to keep at least one hand free, in case I need to go for my gun.”
“Good point,” Annie said dryly. “You never know when you’ll need it to blow away some evil spirit.”
“Sam’s on a break,” the man behind the counter said, unfazed by neither the mention of a gun or evil spirits. “He can help you, but he won’t be back for another twenty minutes.”
“We can wait,” Pete said.
“No we can’t,” Annie said, exasperated, picking up the box herself. Pete opened his mouth to protest, but she cut him off. “What do I look like?” she asked. “Some kind of weakling? I’ll carry it. I would have if I’d picked it up a couple of days ago, before you started following me around.”
She started for the exit, aware of Pete’s discomfort. He was a gentleman, she realized as he held the door for her. It really, truly bugged him to see her straining to lug something he could have carried easily.
“Okay, look,” he said when they were outside. “I’ll carry it.”
Annie kept walking. “Absolutely not,” she said. “You should stick to your rules. You always have, haven’t you?”
He nodded slowly.
“That’s probably why you’re so good at what you do,” she said.
“Yeah, but I feel like a jerk.”
“The very fact that you feel like a jerk proves that you’re not,” Annie said with a smile. “So relax. You’re a nice guy. Don’t beat yourself up for sticking to your guns—no pun intended.”
She thought he was a nice guy. Pete felt warmth and pleasure spread through him at her words. Sixth grade, he thought suddenly with an inward groan. He hadn’t felt like this since sixth grade.
CHAPTER FIVE
ANNIE LET PETE DRIVE HOME. She sat in the front seat with the heavy package on the floor at her feet. She opened it carefully. There were two silver statues inside, wrapped in bubble pack and newspaper, stuffed into a box filled with big foam beads.
The statues glistened, a mournful shepherd kneeling and a Virgin Mary, both faces decidedly Byzantine. They had been cast from a mold, their seams worn with age, seemingly ancient.
Her heart began to beat faster as she examined them. These could be real. Boy, she loved it when the artifacts were genuine. She loved holding the smooth metal in her hands, knowing that other hands had held these the same way over the course of hundreds, even thousands, of years. She loved wondering about the people who had poured the metal, people turned to dust centuries ago….
Annie packed them back into the box, sighing with contentment, and looked out of the car window.
Traffic on Route 684 was heavy for a Saturday afternoon. Pete had the Miata all the way to the left, moving well above the speed limit. Still, a drab gray sedan pulled up alongside them, in the middle lane of the highway. Annie glanced over at the other car’s driver.
He had thick, bushy brown hair that looked as if it hadn’t been combed since the late 1980s. A full, shaggy beard covered most of the lower half of his face.
Annie pulled her eyes away, afraid to be caught staring. But the sedan didn’t pass or fall back. Instead, it kept pace, right next to them.
Annie looked up again, and this time the driver looked over at her and smiled.
Her mouth dropped open in shock.
His teeth had all been filed into sharp-looking fangs. And his eyes…! His eyes were an unearthly shade of yellow-green.
Like an animal’s eyes. Like some kind of cat or…Or a wolf.
Wide-eyed, Annie watched with revulsion as the man made an obscene gesture with his tongue. Then he lifted a bright orange squirt gun to the window and she realized the back of his hands were covered with the same thick brown hair—or fur!—that was on his head. He squeezed the trigger.
A stream of red sprayed the inside of his window, hanging on the glass, thick and bright as fresh blood.
“God!” Annie cried, jumping back and slamming into Pete’s hard shoulder. “Did you see that?”
“What?”
“That car!” Annie said. But the gray sedan was already falling back, merging into the right lane. “That guy! He had a gun—”
Suddenly she was being shoved down, hard, her head pushed into Pete’s lap, her ribs pressed into the gearshift. “Which car?” he shouted.
“The gray one,” Annie said, her cheek against the worn denim of his jeans. She tried to sit up, but his arm was pinning her down.
Taylor swore. “I don’t see it. Are you sure it was gray?”
The muscles in his thighs flexed and tightened as he drove. He smelled good, Annie thought suddenly, like fresh air and leather, a fading remnant of smoke from an open fire, and a warm, spicy sweet smell that she already recognized as being his own. It definitely wasn’t fair. A man who looked as good as Taylor shouldn’t be allowed to smell so good, too.
“Gray, four-door,” Annie said. “Midsize. I think it might’ve been a Volvo.” She twisted her neck to look up at him. His eyes were narrowed in concentration, his mouth an even grimmer line than usual. She pushed against him again. “Taylor, let me up!”
“Don’t fight me,” he snapped.
The muscles in his legs moved again, and Annie could feel the car slow. Pete moved his hand then, to downshift as he took the exit ramp off the highway.
She pulled herself up, sweeping her hair back from her face as she looked at him. He pulled into the lot of a 7-Eleven and parked, turning toward her.
“Are you okay?”
She nodded. There was real concern in his eyes. Pete took his job seriously—that much was clear.
“Did you get a good look at him?” he asked.
Annie nodded again. “I sure did,” she said. “He could have been anywhere from twenty-five to sixty years old. His hair was brown and shaggy, he had a full beard and bushy eyebrows that grew together in the middle. He looked like he hadn’t showered or shaved in about ten years, and he was skinny…. More than skinny—gaunt…you know, hollow cheeks. He had yellow eyes and black claws at the ends of his…paws.”
“Paws,” Taylor repeated expressionlessly.
“Did I mention the fangs?” Annie asked. “He had fangs. A complete set.”
He sighed, looking away from her, out the front windshield. “Are you sure?” he finally said, turning back to look at her. But even as he asked, he knew from the set expression on her face that she meant exactly what she had said.
“I’m sure. I notice details, and I remember them,” she said. “It’s my job, it’s what I do. And you know, pal, details like fangs and paws aren’t easy to forget.” She ticked off the other details on her fingers. “The outside of the car was dull gray, the inside was beige, vinyl seats. His rearview mirror had a crack on the upper-right corner, and the driver had fangs. His left lateral incisor was filed shorter than the other teeth. He had a small mole next to his left eyebrow. I didn’t get a clear look at the right side of his face. Presumably it was covered with as much hair as the left side of his face.”
Taylor’s eyebrow had twitched a fraction of an inch upward. “Anything else?”
“His gun wasn’t real.”
His eyes narrowed very slightly. “That’s not always easy to tell,” he said. “Even for someone who’s good with details.”
“This detail was kind of hard to miss,” Annie said. “The gun was orange.”
She was grinning at him, her blue eyes sparkling with humor. “It was a water pistol, Taylor,” she said. “The only danger I was in was from you—and the gearshift.” She rubbed her side. “I think I’ve got one hell of a bruise. If I’d known you were going to go all mac
ho on me, I would’ve told you about the gun a little bit differently.”
She gave Pete a quick description of the bloodlike liquid the man had sprayed on the inside of his window. “It was probably just a coincidence,” she said. “It’s getting close to Halloween. It probably didn’t have anything to do with me.”
“I don’t believe in coincidences,” Taylor said.
“I don’t believe in werewolves or ghosts or witches, Navaho or otherwise,” Annie said. “I seriously doubt the spirit of Stands Against the Storm drives a gray Volvo. And no self-respecting Navaho witch is going to leave the Southwest, let alone cruise the highways of suburban New York City in wolf form on a Saturday afternoon. If this wasn’t a coincidence, I’d say it’s a sure bet that someone is trying really hard to make it look as if the Navaho are behind the death threats. But if that’s the answer, it leaves an even bigger question. Why?”
JERRY TILLET WAS IN THE OFFICE, perched on the edge of Annie’s desk, smiling at Cara.
His reddish hair had grown long, and he wore it pulled back into a ponytail at the nape of his neck. He had a thick beard and mustache, and he wore a battered Red Sox baseball cap on his head. His skin was sunburned on top of a deep tan, and his clothes looked as though they hadn’t seen a washing machine in weeks.
“Is it safe to stand downwind of you, Professor?” Annie asked from the doorway. “That is you under all that hair, isn’t it, Tillet?”
“Hey, Doc,” Jerry said cheerfully. “Cara was telling me about the evil spirits. Bummer. So where’s your little shadow?” His gaze flickered over Annie’s shoulder. “Big shadow,” he corrected himself.
Annie turned to see Pete standing behind her. She introduced the two men. “Peter Taylor, Jerry Tillet.” Pete leaned past her to shake Jerry’s hand, and she could feel the heat radiating from his body.
Why am I fighting this? she thought suddenly. Why do I even bother when it would be so easy to give in? But she knew the answer. She didn’t know Pete at all. And if she slept with him just because her hormones were urging her to, and he turned out to be a real yuck or some kind of Attila the Hun, she’d feel mighty stupid. But still, there was something to be said for surrendering to the animal attraction.
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