by Hailey North
From within her purse, she heard what was clearly a chuckle.
From his vantage point outside the windowed front of Pottery DeLite, Tony crossed his arms over his chest and marveled at the mix of emotions he experienced watching Penelope Sue Fields as she browsed in the store.
He’d be willing to bet she described herself as conservative, proper, and totally earnest about her professional appearance. Just look at those loafers she had her feet tucked into on this gorgeous July afternoon when most of the people enjoying a day in the French Quarter sported sandals or tennis shoes.
He glanced down at his sandals and smiled. Did she even own a pair?
But the question uppermost in his mind was whether she had any idea how utterly sexy she was inside the protective wrapping she wore.
Tony considered himself something of an expert on women, and prided himself on being able to spot a hot babe a mile away.
Twice now he’d seen her soften and drop the armor when she thought no one was watching her. He’d give his favorite fishing rod to know what had been going through her mind before he’d spoken to her in the store. Her lips had been parted slightly, eyelids lowered, cheeks kissed with a rosy tone—all these signs promised a woman who warmed well to a man’s touch. Oh, yeah, despite her icy surface, this one would be hot and slick underneath.
A picture he had no business dwelling on.
Damn!
He uncrossed his arms and jammed his hands in his pockets, as his sense and sensibility returned full force. Just then she turned her back and Tony, caught between tracing the path of her neck with his gaze and reminding himself his interest in this woman was purely related to David Hinson’s nefarious activities, almost missed her slick move.
“My, my, my,” he murmured, watching her stash an item from the display basket in her purse. “Wouldn’t the Bar Association love to know what Penelope Sue does for fun?” He shook his head, registering his own disappointment. He wished now that she’d proven as proper as she appeared.
“Fool.” He propelled his body free of the supporting wall where he’d been lounging. He had to keep reminding himself this woman was David Hinson’s latest interest. His initial contact might have been incited by a tearful request to check on Hinson’s romantic liaisons, but things had gotten much more complicated in the past few days.
He’d delivered the proof of Hinson’s dallying to his erstwhile girlfriend. She’d sobbed and called Hinson all sorts of names, then clung to Tony as if he were her only friend in the world. He should have been surprised, but somehow he wasn’t when the chick threw her arms around him and begged him to help her drown her sorrows. She’d offered more, but Tony had declined all services. He’d also declined to ease her grief.
People sure were predictable little shits.
And here he was discovering Ms. Prim and Proper Tax Attorney got her jollies by shoplifting. My, my, but what wouldn’t the firm of LaCour, Richardson, Zeringue, Ray, Wellman and Klees pay for this nugget of information?
His expression hardened. He observed her as she walked toward the doorway, those boring blue placemats clutched in her hand. To his amazement, she seemed about to brave her way right out the front door when the clerk called to her.
She turned. She dropped the placemats. Twin crimson roses staining her flawless cheeks, she scurried from the store.
“Now, wasn’t that clever.” Tony heard the disgust in his whisper. Holding the placemats out, pretending to forget she had them, leaving them inside the store—all a clever ploy to distract from whatever she’d lifted and hidden in her purse. What he wouldn’t give to still be able to whip out his badge.
He’d bust her. Cuff her. Drag her down to the station.
He stopped in mid-image.
His very next thought had been how he’d enjoy strip-searching her, which of course was ridiculous, as any such search would have been conducted by female officers. Whew, was he out of control or what? The lady was a thief and he still wanted to wrestle her out of that buttoned-to-the-neck blouse.
The strength of his reaction infuriated him. And for that, he wanted to punish her.
Torn between desire and disappointment, Tony pushed out of the mail’s side exit just as she stepped into the revolving door. He wouldn’t frighten her, but he intended to catch up with her and make sure she went away with Tony Olano imprinted on her mind.
Her startled expression when she saw him standing on the sidewalk pleased him. She fumbled in her purse, then quickly abandoned her search. She stabbed a finger toward his chest and fire danced in her expression, but rather than the scolding lecture he had expected from her body language, she whispered, “Why are you following me?”
Her voice was so soft he had to move nearer, which he did, stepping as close as their bodies could be without actually touching. Around them on the sidewalk the river of tourists parted and flowed around them, but Tony paid them no mind. He looked down on her hair, glossy as silk.
Tony steeled himself. This woman had fooled the clerk in the store, the same way she’d doubtless fooled others. She associated with Hinson; she shoplifted. Some lawyer! Stretching out a hand, he stroked her purse strap where it lay across her shoulder. “Why do you think, Penelope Sue Fields?”
She stiffened, then delivered a quelling glare. If looks could kill, his finger would have shriveled off. “I have no—” Her lips clamped shut on her words. And sure enough, she cast her eyes toward her purse. Tony had seen that look, time and time again—that nervous telling of one’s guilt.
He’d seen it in men stopped for a moving violation, whose telltale glances ended in searches that revealed guns, drugs, and, once, a prostitute stashed in the trunk of a businessman’s Town Car.
Penelope gave herself away. Tony had wanted to give himself the chance that perhaps he had misinterpreted and she hadn’t stolen, but that glance, followed now by a shifting of her stance, of another anxious look toward him, then back to her purse, confirmed his suspicion.
And the darnedest thing about it was the way her cheeks glowed and her blue eyes turned even bluer. “You wear your guilt pretty well,” he said roughly.
“Oh, why, thank you.” Then she stepped back. “Guilt?”
He tipped a finger toward her purse.
She pulled it closer to her side. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Now I have to go, and I do not want you to follow me.”
“No?” He drawled the word. “I guess you don’t.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?”
Tony rubbed the side of his cheek. “You actually enjoy Hinson’s company, or does he just buy you nice trinkets?”
If he thought he’d seen fire in her eyes before, it had been only a spark compared to the flames that danced now. “Are you a friend of his?”
“Not as good a friend as you appear to be.”
Her fist clenched and Tony found himself wondering whether she’d ever slapped a man.
“What he is to me is none of your business.” She turned to go, then swung back to face him. “You have been following me, haven’t you? Not just today, but for some time. You must have been; otherwise how would you know anything about David Hinson?”
Tony shrugged, gave her his best insolent grin. He wanted her to know he was watching, wanted her to wonder why. He knew she was merely the pawn caught in his and Hinson’s sights, but if he could use her to wreak any degree of punishment on Hinson, he’d do it.
Her lips had parted slightly. She was clutching her purse and looking at him with those baby blues as if she’d been bom yesterday. Only now he knew better. His shadow fell across her body as he leaned toward her. “Get used to it,” he said.
Chapter 3
Penelope had parted her lips to deliver the most quashing retort of her life when she registered a tugging motion coming from within her purse. She clamped her elbow more firmly against the side of her bag and to her dismay heard a definite “Oomph!”
Hoping she hadn’t injured her uninvited p
assenger, Penelope licked her parched lips, so quickly dehydrated by the oppressive heat, then darted a finger under the collar of her blouse in an attempt to cool herself.
What with the humidity added to the heat of this man’s intense gaze, Penelope’s internal thermostat had risen to the red zone.
In an attempt to dampen at least one source of the heat, she inched away from the dark-eyed man who’d played such a stellar role in her fantasies of recent days. His behavior ought to teach her not to make up stories—look how different he was in real life!
With her free hand, she reached out and tapped on his broad chest, which loomed so close to hers. Mustering a bravado she didn’t know she possessed, she said in a tight voice, “Get lost.”
His eyes widened. A smile licked across his wide mouth. “Nice touch,” he said in a caressing sort of voice, but at least he did retreat a step or so, continuing to watch her in that assessing way he had.
But this time Penelope refused to let his sexy eyes and her attraction to him draw her off course. “If you follow me ever again, I’m calling the police.”
His response was a grin that infuriated her.
“You don’t think I’ll do it?” Penelope’s purse began to dance a bit and she wished she’d never, ever gone shopping at Pottery DeLite that day. If she’d stayed home and worked on the stacks of papers stuffed in her briefcase she’d never have run into this annoying man and certainly she’d never have shoplifted a bossy and opinionated six-inch-high mystery woman.
“You’re new in town, aren’t you?”
“That’s the second time you’ve asked me that question.” Penelope broke free from the man’s gaze and looked around her. The sidewalk where they stood was near the end of Canal Street, a major thoroughfare that ran from the Mississippi River to parts of the city Penelope had never had time to explore, but one she’d heard ended at the cemeteries, another New Orleans curiosity.
Around them wandered tourists in T-shirts and shorts, many swigging bottled water, just as many sipping those cherry red alcoholic Kool-Aid drinks known as hurricanes in plastic cups. New Orleans, a city of pleasures and passions, wasn’t a place she fit into naturally, but it rubbed her the wrong way that she appeared so clearly a square peg.
“The police in this city don’t waste much time on complaints like yours,” the man said in a deliberate voice, a shadow clouding his eyes. “They have trouble enough getting to the real problems.”
“Thanks for the civics lesson, and you’re right. You’re not a problem. You’re merely a pest. Now get lost.” She turned on her heel and walked away.
Within the first block, sweat poured off her like the big fountain back home in Grant Park. Even Chicago summers, laden with humidity, hadn’t prepared her for the sauna effect of New Orleans. The sidewalk wavered and danced before her eyes. She clutched her purse, harder to manage both from the weight and the antics of Mrs. Merlin jumping about, and wondered if one could faint from heat.
She didn’t have to wait long to find out. She suffered another shivery attack of heat so extreme she actually felt an icy cold wash over her body. She would have called out for help, but what with all the talking and walking and not having eaten or drunk any water for more hours than she could remember, she couldn’t act quickly enough.
Faintly she heard a “Dear me, we’re falling!” from within her shoulder bag as the sidewalk rushed at her face.
Tony hadn’t intended to follow her any more that day. The gutsy way she’d told him to get lost had affected him in a way a “Please go away” would not have, gotten to him in a way that sparked a purely male reaction.
Spying once again an edge that belied her proper appearance, he wanted to know more about the lady thief. So when she marched away, he lingered, then shadowed her path up Canal Street.
Which is why he saw her sway, then stumble, in time to dash forward.
Which is why he was there to catch her before her head cracked against the sidewalk like a watermelon in a Fourth of July toss.
She was soft and rounded in all the places that crushed against Tony’s arms as he snatched her from what would have been a nasty landing.
And hot. Sweat dotted her face and ran in a bead across her upper lip. With one hand he stroked her damp cheek. She’d yet to open her eyes.
“Damn fool woman,” he muttered, reaching under her chin for the top button of her blouse. He’d unfastened the first one and started on the second when her eyelids flickered, then opened.
She stared into his face and Tony saw a vulnerability he’d not noticed before. What was this woman doing consorting with Hinson? Did she simply not recognize the evil that lurked beneath the polished surface?
He slipped his fingers into the placket to undo the third button.
Her hand clamped onto his wrist. Surprisingly strong, pleasingly smooth and soft. Before his mind could explore that thought further, she struggled against him and said in a cross voice, “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Cooling you down,” he said without letting go of her, then carried her the few steps to the covered bus shelter and deposited her on the bench. Several waiting riders glanced their way, but displayed not a shade of curiosity.
In the French Quarter, the sight of a man carrying a woman wasn’t anything to elicit comment.
But for Penelope, Tony would be willing to bet it was a whole new experience. She watched him with wary eyes as he settled her onto the bench, almost as if she expected him to snatch her up again. Her hair, he noted, had loosed itself from the tight knot and sent a damp curl forward on her neck. After what appeared to be a brief inner struggle, she said in a small voice, “It was good of you to keep me from cracking my head on the pavement.”
“I’d do the same for any stranger on the street,” he said. Good of him? Hardly. He wanted to keep her alive and well to use her to needle Hinson. If she only knew his plans, she’d probably have preferred a crack on the head and a trip in an ambulance. Annoyed at the sweet expression stealing over her face, he pushed away from the side of the bus shelter. “I’ll find you a cab.”
She rose. “I don’t need—”
He was back by her side before she sagged to the bench. “Don’t need a cab, hmmmm? Don’t need any help. Don’t need—”
“You.” She stuck her lip out. “I don’t need you. If you insist, I’ll take the cab, but then I want you gone.”
He nodded. Let her think she could have her way. There was always tomorrow.
To Penelope’s relief, he gave her no argument and stepped away to flag down a cab. Crumpled limply on the bench, surrounded by people who no doubt assumed she was another tourist unable to hold her liquor, Penelope wanted to be anywhere but sitting here. And in her woozy state, she wanted no argument from this man. That could wait until she was strong enough to win.
That thought shot her straight upright. “I am not going to see him again,” she said aloud, in a very firm voice.
From her purse, she heard a grouchy-sounding voice saying, “Don’t tell him that until he gets the cab. It’s getting hotter than Hades here in this purse!”
“Oh!” Penelope opened the top of her purse further and fanned some air in. “Better?”
Mrs. Merlin shook the folds of her caftan, saying, “Mr. Gotho warned me.”
Penelope wanted to inquire as to Mr. Gotho’s identity, but the man next to her had scooted a few inches away, stared at her, then scooted over even more. Clearly the other people at the bus stop were figuring her for nuts.
Wishing to be home in her cool and uncomplicated apartment, Penelope glanced over at her rescuer-tormentor, wondering how long it would take to get a cab to stop. Then she saw him pull a phone from the pocket of his shorts.
Perspiration trickled down her neck, pooling beneath her bra and sealing it to her skin in a way that made it even harder for her to breathe. After a furtive glance, she plucked at her shirt, attempting to pull her bra off her overheated skin.
She should have stayed in
Chicago.
The thought hit her hard.
“No,” she mouthed, and dropped her hand. Better to suffer heatstroke, better to embarrass herself silly fainting in public than to have remained in Chicago.
Here at least she had a chance for a new life.
Her tormentor returned to her side and held out a hand. When she hesitated, he tucked an arm around her shoulders and eased her to her feet.
His touch surprised her. So gentle despite the way he lifted her as if she weighed no more than an empty file folder.
He’d slipped on a pair of dark glasses. Disappointed that he’d hidden those magnetic eyes of his, yet also relieved, Penelope freed herself from his hold before she grew too comfortable. She extended a hand.
He grinned, but took her hand, causing another wave of pleasure at the contact. Fortunately, he let go before she made a fool of herself, jerking his head toward a cab that had pulled curbside.
“The least I can do is thank you,” Penelope said.
He grinned again, quirking his brows, and all thoughts of gratitude emptied from her mind. “Oh, you will,” he said, and opened the door of the cab.
“Why, you’re—you’re impossible!” She jumped into the cab and grabbed the door handle.
He slid the door shut, preventing her from the satisfaction of slamming it.
The cab shot forward.
Penelope turned around in her seat. He stood there, legs spread wide like a sailor claiming the deck of a sailboat, grinning.
Not only was he impossible, Penelope thought, turning to answer the driver’s inquiry as to her destination, but she didn’t even know his name.
They’d gone about two blocks when Penelope saw her shoulder bag shift and heard a rustling noise.
Mrs. Merlin!
Penelope had been half-hoping she had fantasized the incident in the store and the conversational voice issuing from her purse at the bus stop.
“Do you mind?”
