Danger in a Red Dress

by Christina Dodd

  She did. She really did. But how much information could Trent give her? There was no real help to be had here. In this situation, with so much money waiting to be released, she could depend only on herself.

  “So I’ll tell you a secret.”

  She leaned forward, crossed her arms over her uplifted knees. “Yes?”

  “This job is a cover for my real profession.”

  “Which is?”

  “I’m actually a British secret agent. You may have heard of me.” He paused dramatically. “Bond. James Bond.”

  She found herself sitting, book forgotten in her hand, smiling foolishly. “The name doesn’t ring a bell.”

  “Damn. I was afraid of that.” He audibly brightened. “I suppose I’ll have to take you on one of my thrilling adventures before you’ll know me.”

  “I love thrilling adventures.”

  “I’ll arrange for one. But don’t tell anyone the truth about me, or I’ll have to kill you.”

  “My lips are sealed.” She picked up the Eyewitness Book of Great Britain. “But only if our thrilling adventure is in Cornwall.”

  “Cornwall? Maine?”

  “No, Cornwall, England. Isn’t England where James Bond is from?”

  His voice suddenly changed, became crisp and upper-crust British. “Right you are. From England, that’s me. Dashing, debonair—”

  “Dapper?”

  “There’s no need to call names.”

  She giggled.

  “What’s your interest in Cornwall?” He really did a great British accent. If she hadn’t know better, she would have sworn he really was English.

  “I’ve always wanted to go there: Land’s End, grand storms, and King Arthur. The Maine coast seems as if it’s similar to Cornwall.”

  “I would love to see you in Cornwall, standing on the rocks, looking out to sea, with the wind blowing through your hair.”

  She lifted her head as if she could feel the storm’s rampage. She ran her fingers through her hair, and imagined what it would be like to be there as the waves dashed themselves on the rocks . . . and be there with him.

  “Of course”—he dropped the British accent and sounded like himself again, very Northeastern—“I’d love to see you anywhere.”

  She dropped her chin and rubbed her hands over her bare arms, her brief fantasy over. She had to remember, no matter how great this guy’s voice was and how well he flirted, he was old and bald and overweight and wore paisley-print socks.

  And married. He was probably married.

  “I suppose the best part of all that standing around at parties is the food. I mean, the hosts do let you eat, don’t they?” Subtle. That was subtle, Hannah.

  His voice turned very serious. “I don’t let me eat. When it comes to fat content, the food these caterers serve at parties is as bad as fast food, and while part of this job is making sure the bad guys don’t get in, the other part is being able to chase them down if they do show up. Fitness is a big deal for me and everyone in my company.”

  “Your dad’s company,” she reminded him.

  “Yeah. My dad’s company.”

  And there she had it. Trent was buff.

  But probably still old, married and bald.

  Although not too old, or how would he chase down those bad guys?

  As if she’d asked the question, he said, “I’m thirty-eight. I figure I’ve got another fifteen years of knowing I can handle the field work—as long as I don’t get hurt, I mean. Then I’ll reevaluate.” His voice turned humorous. “Of course, if I get married, my wife might have something to say about my hours.”

  “Oh. You’re not married?” She thought she sounded light and airy.

  In contrast, he sounded very serious. “No, Hannah, I’m not married.”

  She pumped her fist in the air.

  “Nor am I bald.”

  She jumped so hard she dropped the phone. She scrabbled around in the covers, retrieved it, and put it to her ear. “B-bald?”

  “Isn’t that what women always worry about? Whether a guy is bald?”

  “Don’t forget the paisley-print socks,” she muttered.

  “What?”

  “So you have a lot of hair?”

  “It’s black and thick. No gray hair yet.” He paused while she worked on her mental picture of him. “How about you?”

  “I’m twenty-four. I’m blond. I don’t think I have gray hair, but if I do, it doesn’t show.”

  “I like blondes.”

  “I like guys with black hair.”

  “I wear it short—”

  “So when you wrestle the bad guys to the ground, they can’t grab it and incapacitate you?” she guessed.

  “That, and the fact the British Secret Service manual says I have to keep it short.”

  “I forgot about that.” She gave up on subtlety and simply interrogated him. “What color are your eyes?”

  “What color do you think they are?”

  “Black hair, so . . . brown eyes.”

  “That’s right.”

  “You wear dark suits and white shirts, and good shoes because while you have to be comfortable when you stand, you also have to be able to run in them, and your job requires that you look elegant.” She had built the picture of him in her mind.

  “I like this. You are going to recognize me as soon as you see me.” His deep voice became almost smoky.

  His image shimmered so close she could almost see him.

  “Tell me about yourself. What do you look like?” When she hesitated, he said, “Blond, I know, so . . . blue eyes?”

  “Yes. Blue eyes, fair skin.”

  “Freckles?”

  “Oh, yeah.” The bane of her life.

  “I like freckles.”

  She took a deep breath. The guy wasn’t saying anything extraordinary, but at the same time . . . he was saying the right things. “Everything else is pretty normal.”

  “Best feature? Quick, don’t think about it.”

  “I’ve got nice lips.”

  “Ah. Kissable.” He approved.

  She smiled.

  “Worst feature?” he asked.

  She sighed.

  “Come on. Tell me,” he coaxed.

  “My ears stick out.”

  “A lot?”

  “They’re not big, and my hair is very thick and I keep it cut right, so you can’t see them most of the time.”

  “Hannah, do they stick out a lot?”

  “Yes! Fine. They do!”

  Her reward for honesty was a soft, warm chuckle in her ear.

  “When I was a teenager and going to my first dance, I tried to glue them back.” Why she was confessing this, she did not know.

  “How did that work out?”

  “I used gum. It got stuck in my hair, and—” She waited until he stopped laughing, and said primly, “I had long hair, and I had to get it all cut off. It was very traumatic.”

  “I’m sure it was, at the time. But you don’t care anymore. You’re smiling.”

  She put her fingers over her lips as if to hide them from . . . the telephone. “How do you know I’m smiling?”

  “I can hear it in your voice.”

  He was smiling, too. She could hear it in his voice. “The guy who was taking me to the dance was a jerk about it.”

  “Teenage boys are always jerks,” he assured her. “I know. I was one.”

  Now he was about as far from jerkdom as it was possible for a man to be. Now he was . . . sweet and hot as cocoa. “Okay. Now it’s your turn. What’s your biggest secret?”

  “I was more than a jerk when I was a teenager. I was a hoodlum.” It sounded like a joke.

  So she joked back at him. “Really? Leather coat and all?”

  “Yes. I stole a leather coat.” Except he was serious.

  Her mouth dropped open.

  “Hannah?”

  “I’m here.”

  “And shocked.”

  “I guess I am. You just seem so—�
��

  “Law-abiding? I assure you I am . . . now.”

  She imagined a young black-haired punk in a leather jacket, slouching down a rough city street, his gaze flickering toward the shadows in the alley, always vigilant for attack, yet safe . . . because he was the best with a knife, the best with his fists, the toughest. . . .

  She caught her breath with a gasp.

  The silence had gone on far too long.

  “Trent?”

  “I thought maybe now that you knew what I’d been, you didn’t want to speak to me anymore.” He was still serious. So serious.

  “No, it’s not that. I was picturing you as a—”

  “Gang member. I was part of a gang. It’s not glamorous. It’s mean and it’s ugly. I got sent to juvy for a year, and I was lucky. Lucky to get caught. Lucky to get out alive.”

  It didn’t matter what he said. The image of the slouching dark-haired boy grew stronger in her mind.

  Wryly, he asked, “You’re picturing West Side Story, aren’t you?”

  The image vanished with a small pop, and she giggled. He was right. She saw him snapping his fingers, ready to dance to the music in her head. And when she finished laughing, she yawned.

  At once he said, “I should let you sleep. I know Mrs. Manly and her party have you hopping.”

  “I enjoy it.” She didn’t want him to hang up.

  “I’m looking forward to tomorrow night.”

  “I am, too.”

  “Trent,” he added.

  “What?” Why did he say that?

  “I am, too, Trent,” he insisted. “I like it when you say my name. I like the sound of it on your lips.”

  She bit her lower lip, and even though he was nowhere in sight, she didn’t know where to look.

  “You know”—his voice had that deep timbre again—“when we see each other, it’ll be the first time. But we’ll recognize each other.”

  She was increasingly breathless. “You can look for the woman with the ears that stick out.”

  “I’ll look for the shy blonde with the dusting of freckles across her nose.”

  He made her thrill with every word. She lightly rubbed the skin between her breasts, over her heart.

  “Don’t expect too much,” she warned faintly.

  “We would recognize each other even if we’d never had this conversation. Our eyes will meet and we’ll know . . . just know.”

  She pressed her legs together, shifted uncomfortably as arousal hummed through her veins. “Are you trying to seduce me?”

  “Am I succeeding?”

  She laughed, and she was proud of the carefree sound. “No, but it’s fun to listen.”

  He hesitated as if he wanted to challenge her. Then he said, “You can’t say I didn’t try.”

  “Good night . . . Trent.”

  “And there we have it.” He sounded faintly humorous. “I couldn’t seduce you with all the words in the dictionary, and you seduce me with a single syllable.”

  “Trent,” she repeated that single syllable. “Good night, Trent.” She listened to Trent groan again, and hung up the phone smiling.

  Had he seduced her with his conversation? She’d told him no.

  She was the world’s biggest liar.

  Thank God. If he knew how easily she responded to him . . .

  She thought about him, how she would see him tomorrow night, and how he couldn’t be as handsome and as wonderful as she imagined. Yet she was going to see him, so he couldn’t have lied too much.

  Maybe he was short—her height. Less.

  But she couldn’t convince herself it mattered, because she kept hearing his groan as she said his name.

  He’d sounded like a man in the throes of climax.

  And she . . . she was a woman who had been aroused by every word he’d uttered.

  She wiggled down, off the pillows, until she was flat on her back and staring at the ceiling. She imagined him, not the young, tough thug, but the older man, scarred by experience, with the body of a fighter and the face of a dark angel. She imagined him above her, pressing her into the mattress, kissing with all the passion of his wild nature, opening her to him. . . .

  As Hannah twisted on the bed, wrapped in her fantasies, Gabriel stood hunched over the monitor, breathing hard. Each time she touched herself, he groaned again, imagining himself there above her, coaxing a response from her and giving of himself in return.

  She was everything he had wanted in a dream woman. Everything he had ever wanted in his soul mate.

  Hannah Grey was everything to him.

  SIXTEEN

  “You look happy.” Mrs. Manly rested on the bed, dressed in her costume, and watched Hannah prepare the tray of sterile syringes and medications Mrs. Manly might need when she returned to her room.

  “I am.” Hannah ran through the list of possibilities in her mind. Mrs. Manly’s blood sugar would be off, she’d be exhausted, her blood pressure might be high, she might have angina, she might need a tranquilizer.

  “Because the party is finally here?”

  “Yes. That’s it.” Hannah smiled at the sterile syringes she carefully placed beside each vial, checked the labels once again, and made sure they were organized just so.

  She was happy. That conversation last night had made her remember how good life could be when one had friends and . . . a lover.

  Not that he knew he was her lover. For that very reason, fantasies were remarkably safe.

  “It’s been a lot of work for you,” Mrs. Manly said.

  Satisfied with the arrangement on her tray, Hannah turned to Mrs. Manly and started a last-minute check of her pulse, her blood pressure, and her blood sugar. “I’ve enjoyed it. It’s been completely different from any of my other assignments. If the whole world suddenly gets healthy and the nursing gig fails, I’ll go into party planning.”

  “You’d be good at it. You’re very efficient.” Mrs. Manly’s color was good; her eyes were bright.

  “You’re looking forward to the party, too,” Hannah observed. Mrs. Manly’s vital signs were perfect; she was in good shape for an overweight, aging diabetic with heart problems.

  “It’s my last hoorah before going to court about Nathan’s fortune. I might as well enjoy it.” Her voice sounded as displeased as always, but she looked less bitter.

  Hannah placed her hand on Mrs. Manly’s shoulder. “When you go to court, I’ll be there at your side.”

  Mrs. Manly covered Hannah’s hand with her palm. “That is a relief. You’ve helped me, and I appreciate every moment that we’ve spent together.”

  “Even when I made you eat right?”

  “Even then.” Mrs. Manly lifted herself on one elbow. “In fact, as a reward, I had a costume made especially for you.”

  Hannah was hanging up the blood pressure cuff, and she paused. “What is it?”

  “It’s in that garment bag on the hook.” Mrs. Manly looked as if she were bursting with mischief. “Go look at it.”

  Hannah walked over and pulled down the zipper to reveal the costume in its full glory.

  It was a white uniform, the kind nurses wore in the fifties, with white stockings, white granny shoes, and a starched nurse’s cap with wings and a black stripe across the brim.

  “Mrs. Manly!” Hannah was aghast.

  What had Trent had said the night before? Do you know the fantasies I’ve had about nurses?

  “It’s just right,” Mrs. Manly said. “You can comfortably dance in those shoes. The stockings have seams up the back—”

  Hannah lifted the ruffled garter belt and the sheer white nylons, and looked at Mrs. Manly with shock and inquiry.

  Mrs. Manly smirked. “You’re going to be very popular. Men have dreams about nurses.”

  “So I’ve heard.” Hannah fitted the narrow white winged mask over her eyes. She looked in the mirror, and thought about how much she and Trent had said last night, and how much they’d left unsaid. She thought about seeing him tonight, and that he was goi
ng to think she’d worn this . . . for him.

  And she wondered if at last her luck had changed for the better. “Thank you, Mrs. Manly. I know I’ll enjoy the costume and the party in equal measure.”

  “Good.” Mrs. Manly waved her toward the bathroom. “Go and change. I want to be in place when the first of the guests arrive.”

  Gabriel stood outside on the steps of Balfour House, dressed in a black business suit and a black velvet Phantom of the Opera mask, and watched the guests arrive at the Balfour Halloween party.

  There were considerably more than two hundred of them, people of all ages and backgrounds. Everyone who had received an invitation had brought along a friend, and since many of those friends were prominent politicians, Broadway stars, famous doctors and authors who made their names writing tell-all biographies or scandalous romances, they could not officially be called “party crashers.” They were instead “lending prestige to an already-glittering event.”

  One of the young ladies, dressed in a skimpy Cleopatra costume, stopped and looked him over. “What are you supposed to be?” She had a sultry voice that went well with the sheer gold outfit, so thin he could see right through it to her.

  “A security guard, ma’am,” he answered without a hint of humor.

  Behind her mask, her eyes grew round and wide, and her bosom heaved with such excitement her nipples strained to escape. “That’s a wonderful costume.”

  Was she really that dumb? “Thank you.”

  “When you’re done playing at security, come in and dance with me.”

  Her father—no, her boyfriend, for he wrapped his arm around her waist in a way that said Mine—said impatiently, “Stop flirting with the help.”

  His rebuke to her and Gabriel would have been more effective if he hadn’t been wearing hose, silk knickers, and a white wig. He knew it, too, because he planted his feet and squared his shoulders at Gabriel.

  Gabriel stared back impassively.

  When the guy didn’t get a rise out of him, he yanked at the girl hard enough to jerk her off her feet. She tumbled into him, then continued obediently toward the door. But she cast Gabriel a lingering smile that let Gabriel know she didn’t care if he was the help or not—she’d still dance with him.

  Susan Stevens walked over from her position on the other side of the steps.