Pink Topaz

by Jennifer Greene

  Suddenly realizing that she was awake, he turned his head. His frown disappeared faster than a magician’s illusion. “Did you sleep well?” he whispered.

  “Never better. It was a wonderful night,” she murmured softly.

  A shadow of a lazy, shameless grin creased his cheeks. “It was a lot better than wonderful, princess.”

  “Incredible. Unbelievable. Unforgettable.”

  “You’re getting closer.” He kissed a smile on the inside of her wrist, but she didn’t see a smile in his eyes. She saw desire, dark and volatile, banked with the protectiveness that was so much a part of his nature. And she saw worry. “Slugger?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Were we—by any chance—concerned that one of us was going to wake up this morning with tacky, sticky ideas like love and commitment on our minds?”

  The big warm hand sliding the length of her arm stopped, mid-caress. The sudden stillness in his expression told her far more than any words could have. “I had no idea what you’d feel when you woke up, honey. But I hoped...very much...that you wouldn’t feel regret.”

  “No regrets,” she promised him. The anxiety in his eyes immediately eased. She almost smiled. Slugger was so obviously wary that she’d make demands of him. The opposite was true. She’d truly meant last night as a gift of love with no strings attached. The last thing she ever wanted him to feel was trapped—not by her. Before, she’d had no way to prove that to him.

  Now she did. She touched his heart, then gently slid her hands around his neck. “Last night meant a great deal to me. Our whole time together—it’s all been good for me. But that never meant you were stuck with me or my problems, slugger. I know you’ve felt responsible, but that’s all done now. In fact, it should relieve your mind that I’m about to get completely out of your hair.”

  “You’re leaving?”

  She nodded. Truthfully she’d expected him to look more relieved. Cole looked more as if someone had just slammed him in the upper chest. “I’m going back to Chicago. Today, if I can arrange it. I’m not familiar with the commercial flights available out of Cripple Creek—”

  “Either this is a joke or you’ve been spiking your milk. You aren’t going anywhere within miles of those three partners.”

  Her eyebrows arched in surprise at his reaction. “Actually, I plan to ask all three to dinner as soon as I get home.”

  Cole yanked at the sleeping bag zipper and split it wide open. “Over my dead body.”

  “And after we have dinner,” she continued firmly, “I intend to tell them what I read in the journals. And then I’m going to give Trafer his ruby. And Dorinsky his yellow sapphire. And Reed, the tsavorite.”

  “You’re what?” Completely oblivious to the cold air he was exposing her to, he kicked free of the sleeping bag and lurched to his feet. He didn’t seem to notice the cold. He didn’t seem to notice that he was stark naked, either.

  Regan did—the look of his toned, firm body brought back a hundred memories from the night before. Even last night, though, she’d known what she was going to do, what she had to do.

  Her decision to return home had been made after Sam told them the results from the lab. Those results had yielded no sure answers. Regan had realized then there was only one way to find the truth. Hiding out accomplished nothing. Depending on Cole was the worst thing she could do—for her, for him. If her strength hadn’t fully recovered, she was healthy enough, and Gramps had never raised a coward. It was time she took control of her life again.

  Since slugger should have been thrilled that he was off the hook, she wasn’t exactly sure why her lover was stomping around the room like an injured bear.

  “If you would just listen a minute and try to stay calm—”

  “I am calm. I’m always calm.”

  She’d heard that one before. “I have to do this, Cole. I’ve thought it all through. Those three stones never rightfully belonged to my grandfather—and they certainly don’t belong to me. Jake chose to leave me the journals, knowing I would uncover those old stories. He had to have a reason. I believe those three stones were unfinished business for him. Unfinished emotional and moral business.”

  Cole dragged a hand through his hair as if seeing the patience to reason with the demented. “Princess, one of those turkeys is a sicko if not all three of them. You were threatened. You were drugged. You were terrorized. The jerks belong behind bars, and you want to give them a fortune?”

  She tried again. “I wouldn’t be giving away anything, not the way you mean. Those stones don’t morally belong to me.”

  His opinion of the moral issues involved was expressed in a concise four-letter word. “You’re not dealing with good guys, would you get that through your head? If you went anywhere near Chicago, you’d be setting yourself up as bait. You are not going.”

  She said slowly, “Cole...all three of them were good to me when I was growing up. I can’t just forget that. I know them, and I think my only chance of discovering the truth is to see them face-to-face. Whichever one has turned into a rotten apple—I think he’ll show his cards if I surprise him with the gems. And even if that doesn’t happen, I need to do this. I’m not responsible for my grandfather’s actions. I can only be responsible for my own, but I have a chance to right some very old wrongs by giving the gems back. I know you think honor is an archaic principle—”

  It was the wrong word. She could have bitten her tongue the instant she said it.

  “Honor can get you killed,” Cole said furiously. “I know. That’s why my father died, my brother, and it ended up taking out my mother. Honor isn’t just archaic—it’s stupid and pointless and dangerous. If you don’t see that, I do.”

  “Shepherd—”

  “You try leaving this house and watch yourself get hog-tied to a chair, princess. You’re not going anywhere near Chicago. You’re not going anywhere. If you try it, I swear I’ll sit on you. I swear I’ll get rough. I swear…”

  The woman knew damn well there was no way he could stop her.

  The noise and vibration in the Piper intensified as they neared Chicago. Wildly shifting winds had complicated the whole flight. Ahead was a thick cloud cover, beneath it a driving rain. Traffic in the air was as crowded as a freeway, and Cole was not having fun.

  His copilot was dressed in fatigue pants, an orange blouse with studs, and insanely long earrings that brushed her neck. She hadn’t spoken in an hour. Her silence was most wise.

  Cole had never been aggressive, never had a problem with temper, could not remember in his adult life losing his cool.

  Except with her.

  He’d never yelled at a woman.

  He’d screamed at her.

  He’d never threatened a woman with bodily harm.

  He’d threatened Regan with everything including murder by strangling, and meant it, and in the process discovered what he’d long suspected.

  His hopelessly romantic softie was as stubborn as a hound. The damn woman would have flown alone if he hadn’t taken her. Hitchhiked down the road to the airport. Paid for a commercial flight. Landed in Chicago alone.

  In her shoes, he’d have taken off for Tahiti under an alias—not planned a dinner party that could bomb in her face. He understood that Regan was going to be an idealist until the day she died. He understood how desperately she wanted the truth.

  But when he thought about the risks she was taking, his throat went dead dry.

  When Cole cut the engine, Regan breathed a sigh of relief. Although it was only five o’clock, the afternoon had turned dark and blustery. Through the rain streaming on the windshield, she could see the winking lights of the Shepherd Brothers, Air Freight sign. They were home.

  As she unhooked her seat belt, she whisked a glance at Cole. The few times he’d spoken to her on the flight had been concise lectures on the asinine stupidity of values like courage and honor and integrity. She’d heard his opinions on those subjects before.

  It was rather difficult not to n
otice, though, that the most uncommitted and unprincipled man in the continental United States...had refused to leave her side.

  Cole ripped off his headphones. “I have a few things I have to do—both on the plane and in the hangar. It won’t take long. You can either stay here or go talk to Sam—as long as you stay in sight.”

  “Okay.”

  “My car’s here. I’ll be driving.”

  “Okay.”

  “We’re going to your place. And I’m staying with you. If you have a problem with that, I suggest you eat it.”

  “Okay.”

  Probably, Regan thought, it was inevitable that they’d collide getting out of their seats. Cole was in a slam-fast hurry, and she was trying so hard to be helpful that she moved just as quickly. His knees knocked her thigh; her elbow jabbed his ribs. Their heads weren’t part of the collision, yet somehow in the process of untangling from each other, his hands anchored her scalp and his mouth landed on hers.

  It was a soft kiss. Not hard. Tender. Not rough. His lips smoothed, rubbed, latched on hers, not with the wildness of a lightning storm, but with the slow, surging current of a mating. A memory of a dark room and two naked people was in that kiss. A memory of how dangerous they’d been together. How wonderful.

  Cole lifted his head, looked at her love-softened eyes. “Dammit, I’m still mad at you.”

  “I know you are.”

  “I’m so mad at you I can’t even think.”

  She didn’t mention that there hadn’t been a trace of anger in that kiss.

  “For you to be anywhere near this city is stupid and crazy. And if you think I’m going to sit around and watch you get hurt, you can forget it.”

  She’d have been disappointed if he’d forgotten that last lecture—the one about how she couldn’t count on him.

  It was a long hour’s ride from the airstrip to her down-town Chicago apartment, particularly in rush-hour traffic in a downpour. All the sensory input was familiar. WBBM dutifully reported the backups on the Dan Ryan; the wind blew wet debris all over the streets. She heard sirens, smelled exhaust fumes, saw the landmark Sears Tower like a beacon in the night. Regan usually loved the city. Not tonight. Her pulse picked up the cadence of nerves, the tension and awareness of why she was here.

  Cole made two stops—once at his place, where she barely had a glance at his apartment before he’d thrown together a suitcase of fresh clothes, and the second time at a drive-in where he picked up a white bag of fast food. “There’s extra milk in there. By the time we get you settled in, it’s going to be too late to go out for groceries.”

  “If I accuse you of being considerate, are you going to bite my head off?”

  “If you want me to be nice, all you have to do is say the word. I can have you back on a plane and headed safe and southwest in less than an hour.”

  “I can’t do that,” she said simply.

  But she had a moment of wobbling panic when she first turned the key on the door of her third-story apartment and stepped in. Anxiety-ridden memories wheeled through her mind. She remembered waking in the middle of the night to her sound system playing classical music at a screaming pitch. She remembered coming home from work to a freaky silence and every stick of furniture she owned completely, neatly rearranged. She remembered huddling in her mother’s Queen Anne chair, trembling like a leaf, thinking, Get hold of yourself, get hold of yourself It's all in your mind. And she remembered popping those vitamins religiously every morning, sometimes taking two, because she was so determined to make herself better.

  “Mmmmpphhh.”

  She turned to find Cole comically holding her blue suitcase in one hand, his black bag in the other, and the package of fast food stuck between his teeth. He waggled his eyebrows expressively. His humor was so typically Shepherd that the moment of panic disappeared. Regan saved the food with a chuckle.

  “You forgot me,” Cole complained.

  “Not in this life, slugger.”

  She felt oddly vulnerable and exposed when he first walked in, unsure how he would react to her place. She didn’t have to wait long to find out. Cole found a chair to toss his jacket and immediately made himself at home. The man was nosier than a mole. Carrying his hamburger and fries, he poked his head in every room—and opened a few closets and cupboards besides.

  She had to jog to keep up with him, even though her apartment was tiny. Besides the postage-stamp-size kitchen, there was only a living room, bedroom and the spare room she’d converted into an office and lab. Jake’s desert house was loaded with creature comforts. Regan had few; it had taken her time to get on her financial feet as an independent appraiser. A few of her mother’s antiques were sprinkled around, but the rest was inexpensive and simple. She liked peach and lemon and ivory. She liked soft pastel prints. Her office was cramped with a computer, fax and a jeweler’s lab equipment—all business—where her bedroom was peach and lace and Victorian flounced draperies.

  Regan didn’t specifically mind Cole seeing how she lived...only she’d forgotten what a terrible mess she’d left everything in. Her bed was unmade, the peach sheets exposed. Cupboards hung open in the kitchen. Magazines and mail cluttered in piles. A slip was lying in the hall. Her slippers had never been put away.

  “Now you know how messy I am,” she said with an embarrassed laugh.

  “You don’t have a messy bone in your entire body,” he immediately contradicted her. “You like things simple and you like things neat. I lived with you in the desert, remember? When you left this place, you just happened to be going through a little hell. Where’s your safe, princess? I know you have one.”

  “In the bathroom under the vanity.” Concealed under a thousand personal feminine items that she’d rather he not see. Regan rubbed two fingertips on her temples. He was already out of sight, checking it out.

  “You never took a damn thing from the old man, did you? I’ll bet it drove him crazy.” He patted her fanny, clearly approving her driving her grandfather crazy, as he passed her en route to the kitchen. “That table is maybe big enough for two if both people are your size. How on earth are you going to pull off this insane dinner party you have planned?”

  She motioned to the drop-leaf table against the living-room wall—one of her mother’s antiques. “It has leaves. Five of them. I could feed half the United Nations if I had to.”

  “Better them than the guest list you have in mind,” he said dryly. “I don’t suppose you have a weapon in the place?”

  “I usually carry hair spray in my purse.”

  “That’s your whole arsenal? Hair spray? A woman living alone in downtown Chicago?”

  “I could come up with paring knives in a pinch.”

  He passed her again, filling her hands with McDonald’s wrappers, as he headed for her bedroom. “Damned if I know why I bother asking reasonable questions when I know what kind of answers I’m going to get.” And a moment later, “My God, woman, do you like shoes! My last illusion shattered that you might have one, just one, practical bone in your body. And what’s the smell?”

  “Cooped-up dust?” she guessed.

  “The other smell, sassy.”

  “Vanilla. I love the scent of vanilla and jasmine....” Her voice trailed off. The vanilla candles he’d found sat on the nightstand next to her bed. Her brass double bed with the peach sheets. The only bed in the place.

  By then, Regan was onto Cole. He was having a fine time running around, teasing her, keeping her off balance with all the fast-paced commentary and questions. The effect was to make her forget any awkwardness she felt over having an unplanned-for houseguest.

  Only slugger wasn’t a houseguest. Not to her. And any second now, he was going to discover that the back bed-room was an office and there were no spare beds.

  Abruptly, his head popped around the doorway. His gaze was the ray of a flat slate shingle. “Just for the record, I’ll be bunking on the couch, princess.”

  He never made eye contact with her before his head
disappeared again. Regan swallowed hard. The implied rejection stung more than she could believe...yet it shouldn’t have. Yes, he was here. Yes, he’d stood by her. But from early this morning, she’d sensed how hard he was fighting to erect an emotional distance between them. She’d seen his eyes chill when he’d said, “Honor can get you killed.”

  She had known at that instant that she’d inadvertently stepped on a land mine. Slugger didn’t like honor and danger paired in the same breath. It explicitly reminded him of the loss of his father, his family. By coming with her, he’d raised the ghosts in his own attic.

  Dammit, Shepherd, I didn't want you to come. I never wanted you hurt. And it's your own stubborn fault that you're here.

  Regan was briefly tempted to tear her hair out by the roots in frustration...only it wouldn’t have helped.

  All she could do—all she’d ever known how to do with that man—was love him.

  Someone was juggling china plates. Without earplugs, it wasn’t the kind of noise one could sleep through. Cole pried his eyes open. The sun hadn’t risen yet; the living room was still dark. A thin ribbon of light showed under the closed kitchen door—where the muted clatter of plates was coming from.

  He swung his legs off the peach couch—an amazing feat, considering that his neck, spine and knees felt permanently cramped from sleeping on the too-soft sofa—and reached for his jeans. His watch claimed the hour was six. His body, still on Cripple Creek time, claimed the hour was four.

  As groggy as a drunken sailor, he negotiated the dark living room and pushed at the kitchen door. Bright light instantly assaulted his eyes. Regan, her hair pulled back in a rubber band and dressed in a neon orange sweatshirt that reached her thighs, had her hands immersed in sudsy water. There was water on the floor, water on the counter and dishes on every surface in sight. Her eyes filled with guilt the moment she spotted him.

  “Oh, Lord, did I wake you?”

  He was incapable of answering that question kindly. “What are you doing, honey?”

  She lifted both hands in a classic feminine gesture of panic—which effectively spattered more sudsy water on the floor. “Cole! They’re going to be here at six!”