THE TEMPTATION OF SEAN MCNEILL

by Virginia Kantra

  She was afraid he was right. And her fear made her say coolly, "They aren't bullies, exactly. Carmine explained it to me. The Bilottis are businessmen. It's a business deal."

  "Uh-huh," Sean said, plainly unconvinced. "Didn't this businessman just screw you for another thousand a month?"

  "Well, yes, but—"

  "And you're planning on paying it, aren't you?"

  She stiffened at the censure in his voice. "To protect my children. Yes."

  "So, he wins."

  Anger flashed inside her. "This is not about winning or losing."

  "Sure, it is. These guys are taking you for everything you've got."

  "That is so like a man. Doug never could get up and walk away from a game. Don't you understand? I don't care about anything, as long as they leave my children alone. I'm not afraid of losing."

  He came to her then, and took her hands between his big, calloused ones.

  "You're wrong," he said quietly. "You are so afraid of losing, you can't win. You need the police."

  She flinched from the compassion in his eyes. It was too seductive. "Easy for you to say. No one's threatening your children."

  He released her hands. "That's right. But I'm not standing around while some goon threatens yours, either. I'm involved now, Rachel, whether you like it or not."

  * * *

  Chapter 9

  «^»

  Sean watched Rachel walk away. Nice view. He wasn't getting any, but that wasn't what made him grind his molars in frustration. For the first time since Trina, he was involved with a woman who wanted less of him than he was prepared to give, and he hated it.

  He hated that Rachel didn't trust him to handle things. But then, what had he done to earn her trust? Bringing her kids home had forced her to confide in him. So she would talk to him now, but she wouldn't listen to his advice. She wouldn't accept his help.

  He rubbed his unshaven jaw.

  Define the problem. His brother Con, the smart one, the one who went to Harvard, said that all the time.

  Know your enemy. Patrick said that.

  Maybe Sean wasn't the man Rachel needed or wanted, maybe he didn't have Con's brains or Patrick's military know-how, but he figured he had one advantage over his brothers. He waited until the screen door had closed behind Rachel's shapely butt and prickly pride. And then, picking up the phone, he dialed a girl he used to know in Boston.

  "Mary Ann O'Riley," came crisply through the receiver.

  "Hi, gorgeous."

  "Sean MacNeill!" Genuine pleasure lightened the voice on the other end of the line. "I never thought I'd hear from you again."

  "It's nice to hear you, too, Mary Ann." He shifted the phone to his other ear. "Listen, something came up down here I was hoping you could help me with."

  "The FBI doesn't fix speeding tickets, boyo." Sean grinned. He'd always liked Mary Ann's sense of humor. But she had a ticklish sense of honor, too, that could be difficult to work around. "Now you know I wouldn't bother you for something like that. This is more a matter of information."

  "Sean, we dated for six months and I never could get you to say the three little words that were important to me. What makes you think I'd risk my job telling you anything now?"

  "I only need one word, Mary Ann. Just one." She sniffed, but she didn't hang up. "And what would that be?"

  He took a deep breath. "Yes or no?"

  "You asking me for a date?"

  Hell. "I would love to see you again, but what I really need is more like background information."

  "A background check? No way."

  "No, not a background check. Just a word, like I said. I'm seeing this woman—"

  "And you had to call to tell me."

  "This is someone special. And she's in trouble. It would help me out a lot if I knew how bad the trouble was."

  The line hummed. "What kind of trouble?" Mary Ann asked at last.

  Sean released his breath. He had her. "That's what I don't know. Family trouble, maybe." He paused. "Maybe one of those big Italian families. Could you tell me that? If I gave you a name? Just yes or no."

  "I could do that, I guess," she said slowly. "What's the name?"

  "Bilotti. Frank or Carmine."

  "That's two names."

  "Pick one," Sean said, trusting Mary Ann wouldn't rest until she'd run a check on them both.

  "Ha. You owe me, boyo."

  "I know it," he said.

  "Dinner next time you're in town?"

  He hesitated.

  "She's that special, huh? The woman you're seeing."

  He could have told her no one was that special. Only the thought of Rachel with her little-girl ponytail and her woman's body and her schoolteacher's voice stopped him.

  "Could be," he said.

  Mary Ann sighed. "All right. I'll see what I can do."

  * * *

  "The Ed Sullivan Show," Rachel said suddenly to Deedee Pittman. They were leaving school together, on their way to the teachers' parking lot. "Do you remember that? I must have been about five, but I remember this man running up and down this long table, and he was spinning all these plates up on sticks, and if he didn't get to one in time, everything crashed."

  Dee paused on the broad concrete steps. "You are crazy today. Is everything all right? The kids?"

  Rachel bit her lip, already regretting her outburst. "Everything's fine. They're fine." And they'd stay fine, too, as long as she got to the elementary school in time. She wasn't risking a repeat of yesterday. "What are you stopping for?"

  "Oh, I left my grade book in my desk. I've got to get it. You go on ahead, if you're in such a hurry."

  "Thanks. Yes. I'd better."

  She hadn't slept, she could barely teach. She'd canceled her after-school help hour so she could pick up her kids. Until Rachel personally told Frank Bilotti she would pay the extra thousand a month, she wasn't taking any chances.

  She didn't have his phone number, only the address of a post-office box in Philadelphia. Another plate, spinning out of her control. It was awful, not being able to reach him.

  And then she reached the sun-flooded parking lot and saw him leaning against the hood of her mother's car, and that was maybe worse.

  She blinked. He didn't go away. He waited, wearing a dark jacket that pulled across his square shoulders and cleaning his nails with a—her stomach flip-flopped—with a knife.

  When he saw her, the knife disappeared smoothly inside the jacket. He pushed away from the car. "Hiya, Rachel."

  No more "Mrs. Fuller." The omission made her feel as if some indefinable barrier had been crossed.

  He looked her up and down. "Guess you got my message."

  She unglued her tongue from the roof of her mouth. "Yes." That wasn't enough, she realized. She had to placate him. Get rid of him. "I'll pay the money. The extra thousand a month?"

  "That may not do it anymore."

  Dismay chilled her. "Excuse me?" she said, like she was asking him to repeat a request to pass the butter.

  "I've got to check it with my uncle."

  "But … you said—he said—another thousand a month. A gesture of good faith, you called it."

  "You got a good memory. But, you know, we made this offer with the understanding that certain private matters stay private. And you—" he wagged one finger at her "—you are not honoring that agreement."

  "I am. I haven't called the police."

  Bilotti leaned back against the hood of the car, crossing his arms over his chest. "So, what's with the bodyguard?"

  Sean. Bilotti was smarting because Sean had made him back down, and now someone—Rachel—would have to pay.

  "There is no bodyguard," she said wearily. "He's just a friend."

  "Then you be a friend to him. Tell him to stay out of our business."

  "I can tell him. I can't guarantee he'll listen."

  "You better make sure he does. You don't want another visit like you got in Philly. Because this time when I come around I can't guara
ntee it'll be when nobody's home."

  He pushed closer, so that she could smell his cheap suit and his sweat. Her stomach lurched. She was not going to throw up. She wasn't. She pressed her lips together.

  His gaze dropped to her mouth, and lower. "Guess I wouldn't mind paying a visit to your room some night."

  Anger flooded her gut, swamped her nausea, almost drowned her fear. That's it, Rachel thought. She was not standing here like some dumb deer frozen in the headlights while this overgrown delinquent threatened her with rape.

  "You won't get the opportunity. I—"

  "Rachel?" Deedee Pittman stood at the end of the line of cars, head cocked to one side. "I thought you'd be gone by now."

  "I am. I mean, I'm leaving." She fumbled for her keys. "Tell your uncle to call me," she said to Bilotti. "I don't want to see you again."

  She enjoyed slamming her car door inches from his hand. She drove off in a cloud of dust and righteous indignation that lasted until she was almost to the children's school. And then she remembered his scowl in her rearview mirror and shivered.

  Who would pay for thwarting Frank Bilotti this time?

  * * *

  Rachel stopped in the garage door to watch Sean work. He was completely unselfconscious, utterly absorbed in the grain of the wood and the movement of the plane in his hands, back and forth. Shavings floated to the floor. His arms flexed, his back bent, as he harnessed his cocky energy to work. The steady rasping up and down soothed her.

  To her delight, he started singing, chopping the words and rhythm to fit the flow of his labor.

  "'My love she won't have me, and I understand. She wants a rich merchant, and I have no land…'"

  Her chest tightened. She thought she'd taught herself not to want this way. She was all grown up, with children and debts and responsibilities. But watching Sean, she felt as if she'd wandered into one of the stories she'd loved as a child, stumbled upon the woodcutter in his cottage, the prince in disguise.

  "'…and I'll dream of pretty Saro wherever I go.'"

  Yearning pierced her heart. But she was too old for fairy tales, and her ogres were all too real.

  She swallowed the lump in her throat. "Is this a bad time?"

  He straightened easily, awareness of her penetrating his posture. But his grin was open and unaffected and warmed her insides like a fire on a cold night.

  "Not if you came out here to call me to dinner," he said.

  "Twenty minutes? You have time to change."

  "Sounds good," he said, stripping his T-shirt over his head. "I'm starving."

  She was, too, and not for Myra Jordan's seven-can casserole. Regret stabbed her. She looked away from his hard, naked stomach, his shadowed navel above the waistband of his jeans.

  "After tonight, I think it would be better if you didn't take your meals with us for a while."

  Sean lowered his arms, still bound together by his shirt. "Trying to protect me, Rachel? Or yourself?"

  She wasn't used to having her motives read so easily. She wasn't sure she liked it. But the humor in his voice and the sympathy in his eyes made it difficult to take offense.

  "Maybe I'm trying to protect both of us." She drifted from the doorway, trying not to watch as he tossed his shirt away. Water splashed in the utility sink. From the corner of her eye, she could see the long, smooth muscles of his back and the line of paler skin as he bent over the basin.

  To distract herself, she asked, "What are you working on?"

  "Table," he answered briefly from behind a towel. "I finished the rocker."

  She turned to find it and smiled in pure pleasure. "It's … perfect." She let her fingers linger over the swell of the back, unable to resist its graceful strength. "It seems almost a shame to sell it."

  "I'm not. It's a gift for my brother Con's wife. Val's expecting their first in November."

  She was jealous, Rachel realized with a shock. Jealous of the beautiful chair, and the child growing in the unknown woman's body, and the man's love that had put it there. She snatched back her hand.

  Sean raised his eyebrows. "It's not that bad a deal. Con paid for materials, and I'm using the plans to build two more. On commission."

  Heat crawled in her face. "I wasn't questioning your business judgment."

  "Well, you could," Sean said frankly. "But the chair practically sells itself."

  "It does," she assured him. "It's beautiful."

  The hardness around his mouth faded. "You want to test drive it?"

  "No, I…"

  He strode to the chair and sat. It rocked gently to receive him. "Come on."

  Rachel was a grown woman. A tall, strong woman. Not since her daddy died had anyone invited her to sit on his lap.

  She looked at Sean's long-boned thighs. "I'll tip the chair."

  "No, you won't. It's solid. If you want to sit, sit."

  "I don't know," she said, eying his lap with longing.

  "I think you want to."

  She met his gaze, and something inside her danced and laughed with the devil dancing in his eyes. "Maybe," she admitted.

  "So?" He held his arms wide.

  "What the hell," she said, and sat quickly, before she could change her mind.

  The chair pitched under her. Sean was laughing, but she didn't mind, because she was laughing, too.

  His arms came around her and tugged and coaxed until her upper arm pressed his chest and her hip was snug against his. His skin was cold from the wash water and warm with life, and his chest was rough, and his shoulders were smooth, and his mouth was ripe and firm and smiling. She laced her fingers together to keep them from straying into trouble.

  He angled his head. Their faces were very close together. His breath caressed her cheek. "And have you been a good girl?"

  She closed her eyes. He smelled wonderful. "I'm beginning to think being good is overrated."

  His chest moved with silent laughter. "I've always thought so."

  His thigh flexed as he set the chair in motion, tipping her against him. Cradled between the warmth of his chest and the strength of his arms, she exhaled and relaxed. They rocked.

  "Why don't you want me to eat with your family anymore?" he asked quietly.

  She didn't want to talk about it. Didn't want to think about it. "Because you were right."

  "There's a first. Right about what?"

  She rubbed her cheek against him, like a cat wanting to be petted. "About bullies."

  The arms holding her stiffened. "What happened?"

  "Nothing. Well, Frank came to my school today."

  "Did he touch you? Talk to you?"

  She pushed away the memory of Bilotti crowding her against her car, the unclean touch of his eyes on her mouth, on her breasts. "Nothing happened," she repeated. "But you were right. I think they're going to ask for more money. He's upset about you. 'My bodyguard,' he called you."

  "I'll break him," Sean said.

  "No. You need to stay away from him. Stay away from us. I don't want you to get hurt because of me."

  It was an out, if he wanted one. Only a chump would push himself into someone else's dirty business. Sean tightened his arms around Rachel. And only a wuss would leave her to face this alone.

  "I can take care of myself," he said.

  "But you can't take care of me. You can't keep a twenty-four-hour watch on my kids."

  He already knew he was unqualified to protect her family. But it stung that she thought so, too.

  "The police could."

  "No police," she insisted tiredly.

  "This has to stop somewhere."

  "But it wouldn't stop with the police. Even if they made an arrest, I'd have to testify. What if Bilotti's—I don't know—connections—decided to shut me up? They could take the children."

  Sean shook his head. "Not going to happen. We can make arrangements."

  She struggled to sit up. "I'm not dragging them into some witness protection program."

  "You wouldn't have to."


  "Right. They could just shoot me."

  "Rachel, you're not up against the Cosa Nostra here. The Bilottis are strictly small-time. Once you put them away, you're free. It's over."

  "You don't know that."

  He cleared his throat. "As a matter of fact, I do. I checked with somebody I know. Carmine's a crook, but he's not the mob."

  She twisted to see his face. "Somebody you know?"

  He decided now was not the time to bring up his old relationship with Mary Ann O'Riley. "With the FBI field office in Boston."

  "Oh, God." She pressed her fingers against her mouth; took them away. "You called the FBI."

  He continued doggedly. Before she blew up at him, she might as well know the full extent of his interference. "Extortion by wire is a federal crime. There's a field office in Charlotte, I got a name, if you don't want to depend on Officer Friendly for protection."

  "Somebody else you know?"

  "A friend of a friend," he said.

  He waited for her to yell. She ought to resent the reminders of his past. He knew she didn't want his well-meant meddling.

  "And what would this friend of your friend do?"

  "Well, he'd want to talk to you. And then, if you agreed, they'd probably set up a tap on the phone."

  She frowned. He wanted to smooth away the double pleat between her brows, kiss the worry from her lower lip.

  "It's a risk," she said.

  He pulled his thoughts together. "Life's full of risks."

  "Too many for me to want another one."

  "So, sometimes you have to figure the odds and take your chances. You want to protect the children? Fine. Here's your opportunity."

  She was on his lap, in his arms, and she might as well have been a million miles away. He could practically hear her sharp mind whirling and whining like a band saw.

  "All right."

  "All right, what?" he asked cautiously.

  She turned her head to look at him, and the trust in her eyes slammed into his midsection like a wrecking ball. "Do what you think is best. Make the call. Set it up."

  Her confidence left him winded. Stunned. It didn't help his breathing or his discomfort any when she leaned into him and kissed him. Sweetly, like a girl on her first date or a woman welcoming her husband home. His heart bumped with panic.