The Baby Chase

by Jennifer Greene

  They’d better be.

  If there was a woman on earth he had no business seriously caring about, it was her.

  “Well, blast and damnation. I feel like kicking a wall, throwing some priceless china, punching somebody’s nose—”

  “Far be it from me to interrupt a lady’s tantrum, but do you think you could pause just long enough to come up with your room key?”

  Ignoring the irrepressible humor in his eyes, Rebecca clapped her hotel room key into his palm. “I’m frustrated, Devereax.”

  “No kidding?”

  “Oh, come in and have a drink with me and quit being so damned annoying. I swear, you’d stay cool in a riot. Don’t you ever lose it? Let down your hair and just have yourself a good old-fashioned scream-or cryfest?”

  “Uh…no.” Gabe’s tone was dry. And from the time they arrived back at the hotel, he’d been in gentlemanly take-charge mode, as far as walking her up to her room and unlocking the door, but now he cleared his throat at her invitation to come in. “It’s way past midnight now. Pretty late, as far as a drink—”

  “Don’t tell me you’re ready to sleep. You’re as wired as I am. And not to panic—I wasn’t going to offer to serve you milk. I travel with a flask. Can’t remember whether I put Scotch or whiskey or what in it, but I can promise you something more lethal than lactose.”

  Something still made him hesitate, but hell’s bells, he’d already stepped past the threshold to pull the key from the lock. Rebecca closed the door and motioned him toward the table and chairs crowded in one corner, and after that he had the sense to stay out of her way.

  She kicked off her heels, hurled her purse on the bed, fetched two glasses from the bathroom and then buried her head in her suitcase. Out came the flask. Then a hefty package of Gummi Bears, a tin of trail mix, and a serious two-pounder of M&M’s. All the items soared through the air, helter-skelter, toward Gabe.

  He caught the goodies, but she caught the rumble of a chuckle as he settled back in the corner chair, stretching out his long legs. “You, uh, always pack a private food stash?”

  “Always. A woman needs real sustenance from time to time. Living off restaurant meals just doesn’t cut it…. Dammit, we were barely a step behind those jokers every place we went. If our timing had been five seconds better, we could have touched them. For Pete’s sake, it had to be a miracle we didn’t run into them.”

  “At least we know for sure they’re here. And that they’re in no sense trying to hide, but operating out in the open and visible.”

  “But to be so close and keep missing them… How come you’re not as aggravated as I am, you cretin?”

  “Because I think it’s best Ms. Diller doesn’t lay eyes on you, shorty. We learned a ton tonight. More than enough to make some results possible, and even likely, tomorrow.”

  Well, they had learned quite a bit. Rebecca threw herself in the opposite chair and slouched in it, low, cocking her stockinged feet on the bed and crossing her ankles. Did no good. She could make herself sit still, but she couldn’t stop her mind from spinning a hundred miles an hour. Glittery jewelry popped out of Gabe’s pocket—the jewels he’d forgotten to return from the night before. She’d forgotten them, too.

  She glanced down, thinking the little black number she was wearing could have used some fancying-up. Earlier, Gabe had taken one glance and had a minor heart attack at her showing up in the lobby in nothing more than a slip.

  It wasn’t, of course, a slip. It was a perfectly respectable ridiculously expensive spaghetti-strapped scrap of material that reached all the way to mid-thigh. No bra possible, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. She’d only had a few minutes to chase into a boutique that afternoon—who’d have guessed she’d need so many dressy clothes for this impromptu trip? She was lucky to find something that fit her.

  Her talisman charm bracelet jangled as she spilled out some M&M’s, and automatically started sorting them by color. Tammy Diller, from what they’d heard, had been running around braless, too. And had quite a reputation for color. Red dress. Slits front and back. Flaunting everything that was legal and a few views that weren’t—for the right men—her whole program delivered with a New Orleans drawl, a mouth painted scarlet, and sultry-styled dirty blond hair.

  Sounded like a female eel to Rebecca. And Tammy’s sidekick, this Dwayne fellow, had been decked out in a tux, a skinny blond man with a boyish charm—especially when sidling up to plump dowagers. The two jokers had been dressed like they had it to burn, and were pushing a big-talk real estate scheme on anyone who’d listen.

  They had enough funds to get in some serious blackjack games, but they didn’t play long anywhere. Both were too smart to gamble their capital. That was just their advertising budget. But those damn two had been at every single place she and Gabe stopped. Every place. Only every damn time, Tammy and Dwayne-boy seemed to have just left.

  “You didn’t do real good at sticking by my side,” Gabe mentioned.

  “Well, of course I didn’t. It would never have done any good for the two of us to be connected with an umbilical cord. Strangers were always going to tell you entirely different things than they’d tell me.” She scooped up a handful of the green M&M’s—before Gabe could. “I thought that one blonde at Caesar’s was gonna trip you right on the floor. You showed remarkable restraint, Devereax. She was adorable.”

  But no one, Rebecca mused, had been half as adorable as Gabe, anywhere they went. He dominated every room they walked into. He’d shaken off his tux jacket, loosened the top buttons of the pleated linen shirt, and his chin had a pirate’s shadow of whiskers now. Didn’t matter. The virgin white shirt fabric was still striking against his ruddy skin, his long lean frame a shout of virility in or out of elegant clothes, and those deep, dark, broody eyes had enough devil in them to make any woman edgy. Good-edgy. Wicked-edgy.

  Those dark eyes happened to be riveted on her now. “You finally starting to calm down a little?”

  “Just because it’s two in the morning? Cripes, no.” She rubbed two fingers on her temples. “I need to help my brother, Gabe. His trial date’s coming faster than a tornado now. Finding answers in July won’t help worth bananas. I need them now. I want him out of that place, and his name cleared.”

  “Now just take it easy and listen.” Gabe unscrewed the flask, sniffed it, poured about three inches in her water glass and an inch in his own. “I have staff in the office, working on leads, following through on a dozen other sources of information. Other facts could turn up at any time to help your brother. Your mother gave me another name to follow up on, in fact, and God knows Monica collected plenty of enemies in her lifetime. I only took on Tammy myself because right now she looked like our best bet. We don’t have to know if she killed Monica, shorty, and we sure don’t have to prove it. All we need is evidence pointing to her as a second viable suspect. If we can connect Tammy to a problem with Monica around the time of the murder—any connection that looks like a motive—it should raise reasonable doubt in a jury’s mind, and be enough to get your brother off.”

  “Well, that’s not enough. Not for me. He didn’t do it, Gabe. I want who did do it hung up by a big, fat rope. My brother needs to be able to hold his head up. And I hate feeling so helpless to do anything that matters for him!”

  “Rebecca, you are helping him.” His voice turned low, quiet. “We learned everything we needed to know about that pair tonight. Getting a firsthand look at them would have been nice, but it couldn’t matter less. Our goal was discovering what they were up to, and we did that. Knowing about that real estate scheme gave me the information I needed to plan how to approach them, what it’ll take to get a conversation going. So no more misjudging how much progress was made tonight.”

  She took a sip of the Scotch, an ugh taste if ever there was one, yet it shimmered on her tongue, warmed going down her throat. The frazzled nerves were seeping away. So was the exasperation. Her anxiety and need to help her brother hadn’t diminished…but someh
ow being with Gabe put it in perspective. Gabe might not believe in her brother’s innocence, but no paltry tornado or earthquake would ever stop him from doing his job. He was thorough, relentless and, thank God, stubborn as a goat.

  “You know what?” she murmured. “We really did work well together tonight.”

  “Yeah.” He agreed—but she could see the sudden guarded look in his eyes. Obviously in a hustle to change the subject, he glanced around the hotel room, taking in the rose-print bedspread, the token print over the bed, the cramped walk area. “You didn’t land a bad room, but somehow I’d guess wherever you live is real different.”

  “I’ll say.” Since he seemed in a mood to listen, she spilled out a haphazard description of her place. “My office is a mess of books, towering and toppling in every direction. I’ve got an Abe Lincoln teddy bear stashed next to my word processor. I always did love Abe…he failed at everything he tried, but nothing kept him from picking himself up and trying again. I dipped into Mom’s attic for most of the furniture—antiques and stuff no one else had a place for. Nothing matches worth beans. I love it, anyway. You’d have a stroke at the bathroom—having an obvious ‘in’ with the Fortune family, I get first dibs on every cosmetic or scent we’re trying out. I’d bet the bank you’d find the whole place a disgusting female lair, probably drive you crazy with all the clutter,” she said wryly. “Although I’ve got a spare bedroom that’d make one beauty of a nursery one of these days.”

  He avoided the subject of babies as if it were a catchable disease. “Somehow I’d have thought your mother would have pressed to have you live at home.”

  Rebecca shook her head. “Mom knew better than that. We both did. Pretty hard for two adult women to get along under the same roof. She pushed me about security, but I grew up knowing how important that was. Whether I was directly part of the business or not, having the Fortune name was always going to follow me. But as far as independence…I loved both my parents, and after my dad died, my mom and I became even closer. Still, I have my own work, my own life. Can’t imagine still living at home at my age. But how about you? What’s your place like?”

  “Just an apartment. Four walls. All the appliances that make life easier, but decorating stuff—no. I’m working most of the time, anyway. In fact, I bought a couch-bed to set up in the office about four years ago. Easier to crash there some nights than drive all the way home.”

  He was just making conversation, but Rebecca could mentally picture the place he described. It sounded spare and impersonal and cold. Not a haven of comfort that a man couldn’t wait to come home to after a long day, but lonely. Like him, she thought.

  “You know,” she said slowly, teasingly, “when I first met you, I thought you were an overbearing, domineering, hopelessly chauvinistic pig. But that’s not at all true.”

  “Uh…thanks. I think.”

  “You take charge,” she continued softly, “but you’re not really bossy. None of that disgusting stuff even shows up unless you’re worried about someone. Basically it’s just protectiveness.”

  “Is this character analysis gonna go on long?”

  She smiled. “No. But I’m wondering where that protective streak comes from.”

  “Who knows? Who cares?”

  “Hey, if you humor me and answer the question, I’ll quit bugging you.”

  “Don’t try to sell me swampland, shorty. You’re gonna be nosy until you die.” Maybe he wasn’t going to bite at the bribe she’d offered him, yet his gaze rested on her face for a long moment, as if he were considering through whether it was a good idea to answer her straight. “Maybe I do have a bone about being protective. I grew up feeling helpless. My parents fought all the time, and nothing I did or said could make that better. Kids got killed in the street, grade-school cronies got suckered into dope, knife fights, gangs. I couldn’t change anybody I cared about. I couldn’t protect anybody I cared about then, either.”

  Rebecca heard what he said. But she also heard the unspoken message behind the words. The only time Gabe opened up with her was when the information had a purpose—such as meticulously, carefully telling her again that he wasn’t for her and they came from entirely different worlds. “So…was that feeling helpless thing part of the reason you decided to join the military?”

  “The military was my ticket out of hell. The Special Forces was an even better ticket. I not only learned how to protect the men under me—I had the chance to do it. Responsibility, duty, honor—they all count there. That didn’t get old for me, but I did. The Special Forces requires a young man’s reflexes and stamina. Investigative work was a pretty natural thing to follow through with when I got out.”

  “Rules, order, facts. Things you have control over. Things you can make a difference with,” she mused.

  “I don’t think you’re exactly fond of taking the predictable road, Red. My choosing ‘rules’ has to sound pretty dull to you.”

  “Actually, that sounds like a natural choice for a man who started out frustrated by wrongs and problems he had no possible control over. I never had it rough like that, Gabe.” It was the most he’d openly shared about himself, yet Rebecca again suspected that his comments weren’t precisely voluntary. His eyes had skidded down her legs, darted away from the dip in her bodice, and much more tellingly, skated away fast from any expression of caring in her face. She never doubted that Gabe was telling the truth about his background. He was a pure-blooded honest man. She just sensed another truth—whenever she expressed the teensiest sign that she cared about him, Sir Gabe Devereax most protectively warned her off by reminding her of the vast differences between them.

  She knew their differences. She also knew that falling for a man who didn’t believe in babies and families could only end in heartache for her. Yet the risks seemed to have no power over her emotions. She couldn’t stop the rain. She couldn’t hold a rainbow in her palm.

  She could not seem to stop falling hard and deeply, for Gabe.

  “Everyone has different crosses to bear,” Gabe said. “My version of growing up rough was just different than yours. It couldn’t have been easy growing up in the Fortune clan.”

  “Being part of the Fortune dynasty had some unique challenges. But I was always loved. I always knew it.”

  “Yeah, well, a lot of people use that word love. Cheaper currency than money sometimes,” Gabe said drily.

  Any other time, she’d have bitten faster than trout for a dangling worm. He’d always teased, played the cynic to her idealist. Both of them enjoyed the wrangling. Rebecca had never minded it. She just suddenly wondered what it would take to get him to move past it.

  “Don’t,” he ordered swiftly.

  His stress level certainly seemed to have come from nowhere. All she’d done was lower her feet to the ground and stand up. From the alarm in his eyes, you’d have thought she’d stripped naked in a public casino.

  “We both needed a drink to wire down. But now it’s time for me to hit the road and find my own room.”

  “Probably a good idea,” she agreed. But she noticed he didn’t stop her when she followed through with an entirely different good idea and angled a seat on his lap.

  “This is not wise, shorty.”

  “I know.”

  “We’ve been doing just fine.”

  “I know.”

  “You just ignore chemistry, sooner or later it goes away. No way to get in trouble if you just stay out of its way.”

  “That’s a good theory, but I’m afraid it doesn’t always work, Gabe. I think this chemistry’s simmering like a pot roast every time we’re together. At least it is for me. I can smell the spices. The heat’s right there. I don’t understand it. How come I feel these things with you? How come I haven’t felt them before? What is it with you and me? Questions or problems I don’t understand just drive me nuts. Call it a character flaw, but I just can’t rest until I have some answers.”

  “That’s a hell of a half-baked reason for sitting on my lap
.”

  “So kick me off,” she suggested.

  But he didn’t.

  Eight

  He reached for her. Suddenly, roughly. The image sprang into her mind of a shipwrecked sailor yanking hold of a life buoy, the only thing saving him from a dark, wild storm. One of his arms was trapped behind her back, but the other was definitely free.

  Tense, callused fingers dived into her hair and buried there, holding her still, holding her quiet, when everything in Rebecca had suddenly gone still and quiet and she most certainly wasn’t trying to move away. His mouth crushed on hers with blistering heat and galvanizing pressure.

  He tasted…fierce. Like an explosion of loneliness. Like needs trapped so long that the lid was blowing clear off. It was the wildest kiss she’d ever invited, definitely the most dangerous, and her pulse was suddenly charging, charging. Only a dimwit swam in quicksand. She knew Gabe valued control; she knew he’d been a good guy on his terms by keeping his hands off her. He hadn’t asked for this. And maybe she was a dimwit for pushing him.

  Yet nothing had ever felt so right. All the logical reasons this was wrong and risky and crazy seemed to utterly unimpress her heart.

  One kiss, still smoking, became a firestarter for another. His tongue found hers. Took hers. White noise filled her mind; nothing else worth noting existed in the universe at that moment but Gabe. Not for her. No other man had ever been this right. Not for her.

  His hand slipped down, seared a path down her long white throat, skated to her shoulder, pushing down the spaghetti strap of her dress at the same time. Her head reeled back. His mouth burned the same path down her throat, kisses involving teeth and a dangerously wet, warm tongue. The kisses sweeping wet fire down her collarbone were bad enough, but her one breast was bared when he pushed down that strap. Bared. And vulnerable.

  Gabe was a good man. Beyond their differences, beyond the insurmountable obstacles, beyond any other damn fool silly thing, Rebecca’s heart had intuited a long time ago that he was not only a good man, but maybe the best man she’d ever known. Right then, though, he really didn’t seem to be highly motivated to be good.