“You never showed me your badge,” Tara said defiantly, hoping the stranger didn’t notice how badly she was shaking. “I want to know what I’m dealing with here.”

He reached into the pocket of his jacket and withdrew a little leather case. He flipped it open, but he moved his body as he did, edging in on her space, trapping her against the wall.

Tara couldn’t quite get her breath. Her head filled with his scent, something sharp yet smooth that stroked her nerve endings. She fought the urge to squirm, and concentrated on the badge he was holding in front of her nose.

Tara looked at his eyes in the thin moonlight. They were sharp, watchful eyes, totally at odds with that slow Southern drawl of his. Her teeth started chattering, with a chill she wasn’t aware of feeling.

Oh, she was in so very much trouble….

Dear Reader,

Welcome to another month of hot—in every sense of the word—reading, books just made to match the weather. I hardly even have to mention Suzanne Brockmann and her TALL, DARK & DANGEROUS miniseries, because you all know that this author and these books are utterly irresistible. Taylor’s Temptation features the latest of her to-die-for Navy SEALs, so rush right down to your bookstore and pick up your own copy, because this book is going to be flying off shelves everywhere.

To add to the excitement this month, we’re introducing a new six-book continuity called FIRSTBORN SONS. Award-winning writer Paula Detmer Riggs kicks things off with Born a Hero. Learn how these six heroes share a legacy of protecting the weak and standing up for what’s right—and watch as all six find women who belong in their arms and their lives.

Don’t miss the rest of our wonderful books, either: The Seduction of Goody Two-Shoes, by award-winning Kathleen Creighton; Out of Nowhere, by one of our launch authors, Beverly Bird; Protector with a Past, by Harper Allen; and Twice Upon a Time, by Jennifer Wagner.

Finally, check out the back pages for information on our “Silhouette Makes You A Star” contest. Someone’s going to win—why not you?

Enjoy!

Leslie J. Wainger

Executive Senior Editor

Out of Nowhere

BEVERLY BIRD

For Don Hurley—for the title and the inspiration

Books by Beverly Bird

Silhouette Intimate Moments

Emeralds in the Dark #3

The Fires of Winter #23

Ride the Wind #139

A Solitary Man #172

[*]A Man Without Love #630

[*]A Man Without a Haven #641

[*]A Man Without a Wife #652

Undercover Cowboy #711

The Marrying Kind #732

Compromising Positions #777

[†]Loving Mariah #790

[†]Marrying Jake #802

[†]Saving Susannah #814

It Had To Be You #970

I’ll Be Seeing You #1030

Out of Nowhere #1090

Silhouette Desire

The Best Reasons #190

Fool’s Gold #209

All the Marbles #227

To Love a Stranger #411

BEVERLY BIRD

has lived in several places in the United States, but she is currently back where her roots began on an island in New Jersey. Her time is devoted to her family and her writing. She is the author of numerous romance novels, both contemporary and historical. Beverly loves to hear from readers. You can write to her at P.O. Box 350, Brigantine, NJ 08203.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Prologue

It’s not easy being an angel.

Of course, Belle’s particular angel problems were always compounded by the fact that she was a dog and her charges were human. They didn’t speak her language. But in Belle’s estimation, that didn’t matter. No one could ever tell humans anything anyway. They were born with agendas. They had as many preconceived notions about each other as she’d once had fleas on a rather ignominious assignment in Mexico.

The problem with humans was that they never followed their instincts—which just went to show what superior intelligence could do for a species. Pheromones, Belle thought. Now there was the answer. Humans always overlooked the pure power of scents, but dogs caught them, cats sniffed them and—voila. Magic—a pal for life.

Which was why humans occasionally needed an angel to nudge them together—and when that failed, to cause a total ruckus to get their attention. This was Belle’s specialty. Well, the nudging part was in her job description. The ruckus business was something she’d thought up purely on her own.

She waited in front of the Cathedral Basilica on Eighteenth Street in Philadelphia’s first snowfall of the season for the humans she’d been assigned to this time. Then she saw him rounding the corner from Race Street, the man she’d been sent to find.

C. Fox Whittington wore a black leather bomber jacket and his hands were deep in his pockets. Black jeans topped his cowboy boots. Belle hoped the boots were for effect. Nowhere in Fox Whittington’s bio had it said anything about horses. She did not like horses, having been kicked soundly by one a hundred years or so ago.

Snowflakes landed on Whittington’s dark hair and promptly melted. As Belle watched, he grinned at some private thought. His white teeth flashed. He probably didn’t need pheromones, she decided. The females of his species would no doubt take one look at that handsome face and fall right at his feet.

Belle hoped this might make her job a little easier. Human males were rarely captivated by the females at their feet. They always wanted the ones they couldn’t quite catch—and Tara Cole would be hard to catch.

Belle wagged her tail once, sharply, as the woman appeared farther down on Eighteenth Street with a cell phone pressed to her ear. Tara had places to go and lots of things to do when she got there, Belle thought. Her hair was a shade darker than Whittington’s. Belle couldn’t tell exactly how long it was because it was tucked into her collar, but it seemed like there might be a lot of it. Her eyes were dark. She was very beautiful. She wouldn’t have much use for pheromones either, Belle decided. This was definitely the type of female that men chased for miles.

She took the phone from her ear and dropped it smartly into her pocket as though glad to be rid of it. This was going to be interesting, Belle thought as Tara drew closer to Whittington. She wasn’t watching where she was going, was still looking down at her pocket where the cell phone was. Maybe they’d walk right into each other. Then some sparks would fly.

But Tara turned left onto Race Street without even looking at Whittington. And Whittington began heading the other way, toward Logan Circle. Stop! Wait! Didn’t they smell each other? Didn’t they sense anything?

Within moments, they were ten, fifteen, twenty feet apart, still moving in opposite directions. Belle sighed. Stupid agendas, she thought. Humans always thought they knew exactly what kind of mate they needed. Disgusted, she left the Cathedral, trotting north now.

Any decent angel had more than one arrow in her quiver.

Chapter 1

Planning was the key to success. Tara had always believed that with all her heart. In fact, she had framed her life around the premise. Unfortunately, her stepbrother had always been a tougher lock than most.

She grabbed her cell phone from her coat pocket as she made her way down Eighteenth Street, heading home from her attorney’s office. It would be a long walk but her nerves were jumping and she needed the exercise. She punched Stephen’s number into the phone with her thumb.

“We need to talk about this,” she said when he answered.

Stephen Carmen laughed. “Should I fax you over a copy of the court’s Memorandum of Decision? Maybe you didn’t get yours.”

She hated him with an intensity that made her stomach feel awash in oil. “It’s a piece of paper. I’m talking principle. Ethics. Honor.”

“And I’m talking money.”

“I know.” The very idea of Stephen selling the Rose hurt Tara all the way down to her bones. But, of course, she’d considered the possibility—the probability. There was little Stephen craved more than the image and the lifestyle that money could buy. That was why she had planned a worst-case solution to this nightmare.

“Give it up, Tara,” Stephen said. “The Blood of the Rose is mine. Every last carat. Your mother gave it to me.”

She wouldn’t. That truth had never left Tara’s soul once in the nearly four years she and Stephen had been battling over the heirloom. He had possession of a will that said Letitia Cole Carmen had bequeathed the ruby to him, her stepson. Hours ago, the courts had ruled that the will Stephen had produced took precedence over Tara’s own.

But her mother would never have given Stephen the Blood of the Rose. Letitia would only have handed it on to Tara because that was part of its legend—and its curse. Her great-grandmother, Tzigane, a notorious Gypsy, had decried that her gem would never leave the hands of her descendants.

“I don’t know how you managed such a clever forgery on that will,” Tara muttered aloud.

Stephen laughed again. “It’s your mother’s signature. You had enough experts trying to prove otherwise. And my witnesses are squeaky clean.”

It was true—they were both topnotch, successful businessmen. The investigators she’d hired hadn’t been able to dig up any dirt on them at all. Tara took a breath. “I’ll buy it back from you.”

That kept Stephen quiet for a moment. “You’d spend money to get it back?”

“It’s mine,” she said simply. “I know you’re going to sell it to someone. Why not me?”

Stephen’s pause was ripe with calculation. “How much?”

“Four and a half million.” Let the games begin, she thought bitterly.

“Six,” Stephen countered.

“It won’t appraise for that.”

“I don’t give a damn what it’s worth on the market. What’s it worth to you?”

He had her there. “Meet with me tonight. I’ll see if I can scrape up some more money between now and then.”

This time the weight of his hesitation was different. “Where are you scraping it from?”

“An investor.”

“What kind of investor?”

“One who respects the stone’s legacy.”

“Your Uncle Charlie.” Stephen said the name like an epithet.

Tara didn’t answer, which was an answer in itself. The admittedly eccentric Charlie Branigan wasn’t her uncle by blood. He’d courted Tara’s mother for six wild and exciting months before Letitia had tossed him over for the staid and steady Scott Carmen. Tara was sure that her mother had broken Charlie’s heart because he’d never married anyone else. But he’d been there for both of them anyway through all the years that had passed since then, at least when he could be found. Charlie had a propensity for popping off suddenly and without warning. The last time they’d lost track of him, he’d turned up snorkeling with sharks off the Great Barrier Reef—at the age of seventy-two.

He was also the money and the power behind Philadelphia’s Hoyt Museum. When Charlie snapped his fingers, the entire board of directors jumped. He felt—and Tara agreed—that there was no harm in putting the gem on display once they got it back. They’d decided that Tzigane would have no objection to sharing its beauty, its fame, with the world, just as long as Tara owned at least a part of it.

Charlie’s identity would come out sooner or later anyway, Tara reasoned, and letting it out sooner might even be to her advantage. She and Charlie weren’t trying to strike a business deal. They were motivated by their hearts. Stephen would understand that he was unlikely to get as much for the ruby from the average investor. And he knew she didn’t have enough money to pull the deal off by herself. She’d inherited her mother’s share of Stephen’s father’s estate, but she had spent a hefty chunk of it on lawyers and experts, fighting with Stephen over Letitia’s will.

“All right,” he said finally, thoughtfully. “Come by at seven. We’ll talk.”

“I’ll be there.” Tara lowered the phone from her ear without saying goodbye.

She dropped it into her coat pocket as though something of Stephen’s greed and cruelty had rubbed off on it. This was not her mother’s doing, she thought again. Letitia had not knowingly signed that will. Tara would go to her own grave believing that and Uncle Charlie agreed with her. Somehow, Stephen Carmen had tricked Letitia. Or perhaps he had blackmailed her somehow. Letitia had seemed so edgy those last weeks of her life. Had she possessed a secret so awful that she’d even kept it from her own daughter? Tara had been over and over it in her mind and the path always led back to nowhere. She simply didn’t know.

The bottom line was that the Blood of the Rose was now Stephen’s. Her Rose, the stone she had sat with at her mother’s bedroom hearth as a child, her heart pounding at its fire, at the red tears in its depths. We have to put it away now, baby. But someday it will be yours.

Tara curled her fist against her mouth and coughed over something hard that lodged in her throat. She turned the corner onto Race Street.

She’d get the gem back. She would.

C. Fox Whittington arrived in the door of Remmick’s—his favorite pub—just shy of seven o’clock. He waded through the crowd to the bar, feeling the tension of the day peel off layer by layer. Fox had been looking forward to this for hours since the last nail had been pounded home into a complex matter involving a six-month-old murder, a well-faded beauty queen and a slice of lemon pie.

The case had consumed him for weeks now and if the law of averages held, he could count on an easy month or two before another humdinger passed his particular desk. But first, he thought, he would enjoy a night of soft music, fine bourbon whiskey and maybe a good steak, medium rare.

A gaggle of pretty women clustered near the bar to his right. Ordinarily, the type of women who came to bars on their own didn’t appeal to him, but the blonde on the stool closest to him left her friends’ conversation long enough to catch his eye and smile shyly. Fox felt his heart shift a little.

She wasn’t Adelia. There would never be another Adelia. But she had a similar way of cocking her head to the side, a way of sweeping her gaze demurely downward after that brief touch of their eyes. Fox smiled back at her.

Maybe, he thought. Maybe this was the one.

Tara’s cab drew up in front of Stephen’s home at six minutes past seven.

The house was three ostentatious floors of diamond light trickling out the windows, making the afternoon’s snow sparkle on the lawn. She had grown up here after her mother had married Stephen’s father but Letitia had legitimately bequeathed the house to Stephen—even Tara’s will said that. It had been his father’s, and his grandfather’s before him. It was rightfully his, just as the Rose was rightfully hers.

Tara stared at it long enough that the driver cleared his throat. “Oh, thanks. Sorry.” She checked the meter and shoved a generous handful of bills at him.

“You want me to wait?” He frowned at all the money.

“No. Keep the change.” She had a feeling that it was going to take a while for her to seal this deal.

She got out of the taxi and stood on the sidewalk. An errant clump of snow fell from one of the telephone wires overhead and hit her squarely on the shoulder. Tara let out a startled sound that showed how tense she was. She heard the cab’s wheels crunch over ice as the car rolled again, then she started up the walk.

The sound of the car had receded before her nerves eased enough that she realized Stephen’s front door was open. On a December night? He was arrogant, yes, and showy about his wealth. He was also stingy. He wouldn’t throw handfuls of money at the utility companies if he could help it. Tara went to the door.

“Hello?” she called.

There was no answer from within the house. But, she noticed again, there was a great deal of light. She stepped into the entry, then through a second, inner door into the main hall.

Her gaze barely glanced off the curving central staircase but she shivered a little anyway and found herself remembering the time Stephen had pushed her down those steps. She’d broken her arm. He’d told their parents that she’d tripped. He’d explained it with wide-eyed amazement and they’d believed him. He’d always been an excellent liar.

“Hello?” Tara called again. “Stephen, what on earth are you doing? Heating Philadelphia? Did you suddenly decide to give something to charity?”

Still, there was no answer. Tara strode purposefully down the hall. She was annoyed. He was up to something but, as usual, she couldn’t even begin to fathom what it might be. Stephen always kept a few cards hidden up his sleeve.

Tara kept calling his name as she went down the hallway. She turned into the library, Stephen’s favorite room, then she stopped cold. “What on earth?”

It was dark in here, though light spilled in from the hallway and the windows. She could see just enough to make out the details of the room. For some bizarre reason, Stephen was lying on the floor. She crossed to him slowly.

“Stephen, this is ridiculous.” She nudged his beefy shoulder with her toe. “Get up.” She wanted to say, Get up or I’m leaving. But, of course, she wouldn’t do that, not without the Rose, and they both knew it.

Stephen didn’t move.

Exasperated, Tara knelt beside him. Then she frowned. The fireplace poker was beside him, hidden on his far side.

It had blood on it.

Her body reacted to what she was seeing before her mind even registered it. Her heart began jackhammering. Her gorge rose. She felt suddenly chilled; her skin had gone dewy and damp.

“No, no, no,” she whispered, not aware she did it aloud. “Stephen?” She touched his wrist. There was no pulse.

He was dead.

The realization went through her like a shot of electricity. She couldn’t feel grief, not for him, a man who had perpetrated cruelty after cruelty on her for too many years to count. But shock rolled through her body, somehow cold and hot all at once. And she knew that somehow, even in death, he would still manage to hurt her.

Call an ambulance, she thought first. But he wasn’t just dead. He’d been killed and she had found him. The press had followed every detail of their court battle. She had told the cab driver—emphatically—not to wait. And she’d given him a huge tip, mostly because she’d been too nervous and too impatient to worry about taking change back.

Real fear began to beat in her blood. She could make an anonymous call to 911, she realized, but then she should just leave.

Tara shot to her feet and spun for Stephen’s desk and the phone there. She grabbed it and it dropped from her nerveless fingers. She cried out instinctively at the clatter it made on the desk then she picked it up again and managed to punch in the correct numbers.

“I—yes,” she babbled to the voice that answered. “There’s a body. Somebody’s dead here. You should—” Tara broke off and pressed a trembling hand to her temple as something else occurred to her. The Rose! Had Stephen been killed for the Rose? “The ruby!”

She slammed down the phone. Her gaze swung wildly to Stephen’s safe. It was open. She took a quick step that way but then her foot came down on something vaguely round and hard, something that pressed into the rug beneath her weight and made her ankle roll. Tara gasped at the pain and looked down.

The Rose. On the floor?

She bent and grabbed it. She had the wild thought that heat pulsed from it, that the ruby somehow knew who she was and that it welcomed her touch. Then she heard a sound. Somewhere…over there, she thought, near the window.

The killer was still in the room with her.

Every instinct told her to be still but Tara was trembling hard enough now that her teeth snicked together. Then she heard it again, a warning…vibration. A growl? She moved back to the wall and inched along it cautiously. Then there was a high-pitched yip and Tara jumped inside her skin.

It was a dog. Apparently, Stephen had acquired a pet.

“I don’t believe this,” she whispered aloud. And then she saw it. It walked into the milky spill of white from the streetlight outside the window. It was a…

…a Chihuahua?

She’d been expecting a watchdog if anything, a Shepherd or Doberman, something he might have used to guard the stone. But this dog was tiny with a long, crooked muzzle and too-big dark eyes. Its ears stood straight out from the sides of its head and they were easily half the size of the rest of it. She could have sworn it was grinning at her.

She’d called 911. The cops would be here any minute. She had to get out of here.

Tara bolted from the room. The dog let out a cacophony of barking and chased after her. Tara made it only as far as the door to the hallway before she felt sharp little teeth slide down the back of her right calf. She choked on a scream and braced herself against the doorjamb to shake her leg. The nasty little dog wrapped itself around her calf and held on, bouncing up and down.

“No!” She swatted at it with the hand that held the Rose. “Stop it! Let go!” Then she let out a low, agonized cry as she lost her grip on the stone.

It sailed off somewhere into the shadows gathered in the corners of the library near the window. There was a soft thud as it hit the wall. Then, only then, did the dog let go of her leg.

Tara heard a steady thumping sound. The Chihuahua was wagging its tail! From the front of the house, she heard a sharp male voice.

“Hello? Police!”

Tara knew she could talk her way out of this. She could talk her way out of anything. It was her gift. But she knew better than to try when the stakes were this appalling, this high. This, she realized, feeling sick, was one of those situations where the less that was said, the better—at least until she called her lawyer.

So she ran.

Out in the foyer, at the very front of the house, she heard the steady tap of heels. Tara sprinted fast and silently through the shadows gathered in the hallway. She hit the swinging door to the kitchen just as she heard the officer call out again. She was running out of time. She’d never get out of here free and clear. She would have to hide.

The pantry! Tara dove for the white-painted door just beside the stove. Behind it was a trapdoor and a small space that one of her nannies had once shown her. As a child, it had been her special hideout from Stephen. If he had never discovered it in all the years since then, if he hadn’t boarded it up…

Tara dropped to her knees and crawled beneath the lowest shelf. She pushed hard against the rear wall with a trembling hand.

It creaked and opened.

The bartender had just brought a second round of drinks when Fox spotted Raphael Montiel over the blonde’s right shoulder. He put his drink down without tasting it.

If Rafe had come looking for him here, then it was purely bad news. They were partners with the Philadelphia Police Department’s elite Robbery-Homicide unit. They never worked at night—unless someone had the audacity to get killed or to steal something noteworthy after regular business hours. Fox pushed back from the bar and waved Rafe down. They met halfway to the door.

“How’s it going?” Raphael asked dryly as his gaze fell on the blonde.

“She has potential.”

“Don’t look now, but I think your Georgia’s showing again.”

“Leave my Georgia alone.”

Fox was transplanted from Savannah. Northern women tended to have an aggressive edge that he had never quite gotten used to…with the single exception of Adelia. She’d been sweet and soft, demure and fragile. Too fragile. He’d lost her to leukemia six weeks before they were to be married.

The grief had ebbed and flowed through him sporadically for ten long years, then it had finally settled into something distant and bearable. Now Fox was determined. It was time to start over. Somewhere in Philadelphia, he thought, there was another gentle, quiet woman meant to be his wife.

“We’ve got to go,” Rafe said. “We’ve caught a stiff up in Chestnut Hill. A nice, fat rich one. There are officers there now, waiting for us. Seems a ruby the size of Mount Rushmore has disappeared as well.”

Translation, Fox thought—his night was over.

He returned to the bar and paid the tab, then he snagged his jacket from the back of his stool. On impulse, he caught the blonde’s hand and kissed it, a gentle touch that was gone before it started. Her eyes widened and she sighed. When he straightened, he saw Rafe roll his eyes.

Five minutes later, they were in Fox’s vintage Mustang, a 1968 Shelby convertible, heading north. Raphael filled him in on what he knew so far.

“We got an anonymous 911 call. A female. The call was traced to the home. She seemed to indicate that Carmen—that’s Stephen Carmen—was killed for a gem he had in his possession, but I haven’t heard the tape yet. Officers arrived and yeah, there was a body in the library but no apparent jewels lying about. The missing stone is a Burmese ruby, uncut, twenty-four carats. It’s called the Blood of the Rose.”

Fox frowned. The name tickled his memory. “I’ve heard of it.”

“If you’ve read the papers lately, you’d have to. Stephen Carmen and his stepsister—name of Tara Cole—have been tying up the probate courts over this baby for something like four years now. The ruby belonged to Cole’s mother, Letitia Cole Carmen, who apparently willed it to her stepson.” He paused for effect. “The court returned a ruling today—Carmen’s will was up to snuff. They gave him the gem.”

“So let’s find the lady and have someone take her down to headquarters.” Fox reached automatically for the radio handset on his dashboard.

“Not likely. I already put the word out for some officers to pay a visit to Ms. Cole. She doesn’t appear to be home.”

They pulled up in front of a house awash with lights. Brilliance glittered from three floors’ worth of windows. The front door was wide open. Fox cut the engine.

“So do you want to take care of the body or do the scene this time?” Rafe asked.

“I’ll handle the scene. You wouldn’t know a gem if you fell over it. You can’t tell rock salt from diamonds.”

Raphael frowned. “I was distracted during that case.”

“Yeah? How’s Kate?” He’d been distracted, Fox remembered, because he’d met his wife on that one.

“Pregnant,” Rafe reminded him.

“Read cranky between the lines.” Fox had four sisters back in Savannah. During his visits home, he’d noticed the trend. “Fear not, pal. It gets worse before it gets better.”

Raphael looked at him sharply. “You’re just busting my chops because I pulled you away from Bambi.”

“Her name was Candy.”

“Whatever. Aren’t you? Busting my chops?”

“Nope.” It was Fox’s turn to grin.

They got out of the car. Fox moved up the sidewalk at a stroll, a few steps behind Rafe’s more rapid pace. An officer stepped into the door as they reached it. Fox read his name tag when he joined them. “Hey, McGee, what’s the story?”

McGee thrust a thumb over his shoulder. “The vic’s in the library. Through those doors there and down a bit to your right.”

Fox stepped into a marble-floored vestibule. There were French doors at the back. Odd architectural touch, he thought. That was a Yankee for you. In his humble opinion, they weren’t long on welcoming hospitality. This effect made it look as though they were trying to keep guests out.

One of the inner doors was ajar as well. Fox turned sideways to pass through it without touching anything and Rafe followed him. They headed down a wide center hall.

Stephen Carmen lay in the middle of his library floor. Fox automatically stooped to take his pulse. In one memorable case, the vic had been only unconscious and he’d learned right then and there to be thorough, not to make any assumptions. When that “murdered” woman had sat up, he’d nearly dropped dead. That had been in his rookie year.

Carmen, however, was definitely deceased. His skin wasn’t quite cold yet but both his lips and his nail beds were going blue. He’d been dead less than three hours.

The dome of Carmen’s forehead shined in the library lights. He had a receding hairline and pudgy features, with the kind of petulant mouth that always made Fox’s skin crawl a little when he saw it on a man. He dropped the man’s wrist. “Sorry, pal. Rough way to end it even if I wouldn’t have wanted to shake your hand while you were alive.” He straightened away from the corpse, leaving it to Rafe.

Everything in the library was good quality, from the rich indigo of the Persian rug to the teak desk. Fox peered behind the drapes, into the fireplace, around and behind a tiny tea table with two ornate chairs bracketing it. He moved the chairs by nudging the legs with his toe.

Nothing underneath.

Fox went to the open safe and sifted through its contents. He found a wad of legal documents but nothing valuable. He scanned the papers. They chronicled the court battle between Carmen and Tara Cole.

He really wanted to meet this lady.

In the meantime, he studied row upon row of books on shelves that lined two walls. None of them looked as though they’d ever been cracked open. What a waste, Fox thought. Some of them were classics. He took a pair of gloves from the first of the crime scene techs to arrive and he removed the tomes one by one.

Finally, he was satisfied. There was no ruby in this room, especially not a twenty-four-carat-size one.

“I’ll just check out the rest of the house,” Fox said, and Rafe nodded.

It took him nearly an hour to go through the remainder of the place. There was a lot of it but nothing else seemed to have been disturbed. By the time Fox got to the kitchen, he knew nothing else was going to be. This whole scene had clearly gone down in the library.

He reached for the pantry door and peeked inside. Nothing but canned goods and darkness. Then he heard Rafe call to him from down the hall. He closed the door again with a quiet snick and went to rejoin his partner in the library. The body-catchers had arrived from the morgue and Rafe had released Carmen to them. The crime scene techs were leaving fingerprint dust in their wake wherever they passed.

“Okay, here’s my play on it,” Rafe said. “Ms. Cole got word from the court today that she’d lost her fight. She came over here in a nice temper, walloped Carmen with the poker, maybe in a rage, or maybe she planned to.”

Fox frowned. “That’s cold.”

“Yeah, well, either way, she did us the courtesy of calling 911. Then she grabbed the ruby and took off. It fits.”

“Don’t it though,” Fox drawled. Too neatly, to his way of thinking. “Nobody’s found her yet?”

“No. She’s either traveling on foot or by public transportation. She could be anywhere. She doesn’t keep a car—she lives in a high rise on Poplar—so we can’t put anything out on the vehicle.”

Fox nodded. If he hadn’t had a love affair with the ’68 Shelby since he was a boy, he wouldn’t have bothered to own a car in the city, either.

“We’ve got officers at her building waiting for her to come home,” Rafe continued. “If she doesn’t turn up by morning, there’s our cause to put out an APB on her.”

At which point, Fox thought, she could be in Duluth. “Let’s nudge it some,” he suggested. “Give her until midnight to appear, then hit the airwaves with her description.”

“That would be my inclination,” Rafe agreed, but they both knew the score. “Plattsmier will balk. You know how he gets when there’s any money or clout involved and something tells me these folks have some income.” Their captain was more politician than cop, more worried about lawsuits than justice. He’d started his career with enough integrity but the title had done him in.

Plattsmier and Rafe did not get along. Luckily, Fox could charm a snake. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll deal with him myself.”

He left the library again. He went down the hall and finally stepped outside into the backyard. He circled the house once, then twice, without finding anything interesting there, either. Rafe caught up with him in a winter-dead garden in the backyard.

“The techs are on their way out,” Rafe said.

“Go ahead and catch a ride with one of them.”

“You’re going to stay for a while?”

Fox nodded. They had worked together for eight years now. It was Fox’s strong opinion that no case ever got solved by jumping to conclusions. He took things slowly. Rafe, on the other hand, tended to crash right in, angry and righteous in his pursuit of justice. They balanced each other well.

Fox watched his partner leave then he cleared snow from a stone bench. Several aspects of this crime bothered him. He sat down to dwell on them.

Chapter 2

Behind the pantry closet, crunched down into a too-small wedge of space, Tara listened to the new quiet. She didn’t remember this cubbyhole being so cramped. Then again, the last time she’d used it, she’d been maybe eleven years old. Now, even moving her hand to wipe at an errant tear required clever effort.

Stephen was dead. No, she couldn’t mourn him, but everything inside her still shook with the horror of it.

Tara listened to the silence as she tried to steady herself, then she wriggled into the pantry again. The cops were finally gone. She was sure of that. She squeezed beneath the shelf once more and pushed the door open gently, just a crack.

The kitchen was dark as pitch. The house stayed quiet. Tara crawled out and stood. She thought she heard her bones crack. She went back to the hall, keeping close to the wall.

There might still be gaping neighbors out front, she thought. And somewhere, presumably, there was that damned dog, unless the cops had taken it away. If they hadn’t, it might still be near the library and she didn’t care to encounter it again. Carefully, quietly, Tara headed for the back door.

She eased it open and turned sideways to pass through the crack. Then she pulled it gently shut again and felt everything wash out of her until her bones felt like they would bend.

The Rose was gone. She hadn’t gone back to the library to look for it, didn’t have to. She’d heard the commotion of all the cops there. Someone would have picked it up from the floor.

Maybe, eventually, she could buy it back from Stephen’s estate. But for now she didn’t even know for sure where it was. Tara leaned her forehead against the door and fought the urge to cry.

Sometimes, Fox thought, taking things slowly really paid dividends. He sat up suddenly and straight to watch her.

The woman was a shadow moving within a shadow. Everything about her was darkness, from the midnight hair that spilled down her back to the leggings and jacket she wore. She used both hands to pull on the knob and shut the door silently. Then she rested her forehead against the wood. The gesture was so edged with defeat that Fox felt an instinctive stir of sympathy.

He frowned as he let his gaze move up over her bulky socks and running shoes. Yards of legs topped them. This, he thought, was a long, tall drink of water. He felt a certain quickening deep inside himself that was pure appreciation and had very little to do with watching this case unfold before his eyes.

His instincts told him that the woman hadn’t seen him yet. After a moment, he knew he was right. She finally left the door and moved quietly to the corner of the property. Fox stood from the bench and followed her. He didn’t make a sound until he was a foot behind her.

“Excuse me, ma’am.”

Tara spun, her heart exploding. She was running before she even finished her turn.

Fox reached up instinctively to catch her and she ran straight into his arms. They stumbled backward together and went down in the snow.

Fox moved fast. He could move quickly when he had to. He caught both her wrists with one hand just as she would have sprung to her feet again. He kept with her until he was on top of her, pinning her to the cold, wet ground.

“Now then,” he drawled. “What’s all this about?”

The woman drew in her breath to scream.

Fox clapped a hand over her mouth. “Stop fighting me. I’m a—” He never finished. Her teeth sank down into the soft pad of skin between his thumb and his forefinger. She’d bitten him! And while his mind grappled with that, she managed to twist out from beneath him.

Under other circumstances, Fox would have admired her agility. As it was, she flew toward the rear of the property and he was damned if he was going to be bested by her no matter how striking her perfect face had seemed in that moment he’d gotten a good look at her. Besides, he had a strong hunch that this was the elusive Tara Cole.

He grabbed for her and his hand came back holding air. She was halfway over a stone wall at the back of the property when he lunged again and caught her hips. He tugged backward and they sprawled again into the snow.

“I’m a police officer!” he shouted.

She was breathing hard, but then she went utterly still. “No, you’re not.”

Fox actually felt his blood pressure rise. “Yes. I am.”

“You said excuse me, when you came up behind me. You said excuse me, ma’am. What kind of cop says excuse me? A real cop would have said something like, hold it right there, you’re under arrest!”

“You’re not under arrest.” He fought a little for his own breath after their struggle. “Yet.”

“Show me your badge.”

He started to do it. But if he let her go long enough to reach for it, she’d be over the wall in a heartbeat and they both knew it. “Nice try. Where’s the ruby?”

“What ruby?”

“The one you lifted from Carmen’s safe after you killed him.”

“I don’t have a ruby. Where do you think I’d hide a ruby?”

Fox angled his head to look down at her. Where indeed? Whatever she was wearing under her jacket wasn’t just leggings as he’d first thought. It was one piece. It clung to every inch of her from neck to ankles. The fabric was like a breath against her skin, no more substantial than that. It was outrageously provocative.

Only in Philadelphia, he thought. Then he caught her scent. Something spicy. Something hot, seductive, teasing. For the space of a moment, Fox found himself reasonably glad that the North had won the war.

“You have the right to remain silent,” he said. “Anything—”

“Oh, swallow it. What are you arresting me for?”

“Assault on a police officer! Grand theft! Murder one!”

“We still haven’t even determined that you’re a cop!”

His grip on her tightened in frustration and she gave a small cry of discomfort. In that moment, Fox realized the full effect she was having on him. She might as well have taken his manners in her teeth instead of his skin. She was crazy.

Fox came to his feet. He pulled her with him. “You have the right—”

“I didn’t know you were a cop when I bit you,” she interrupted. “You never identified yourself. As for the other—”

He was going to get this out if it killed him. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything—”

“I want a lawyer.”

Fox stopped cold.

The headache she’d given him was starting to pump heat behind his eyes. He was ready to drag her back to his car and take her in for questioning but he was thinking with his temper, not his good sense. Hadn’t the woman been haggling with Carmen over twenty-four walloping carats’ worth of Burmese ruby? She’d start hollering for an attorney the minute she crossed the threshold of headquarters, and the money he presumed she had would buy a lot of legal punch.

Fox made a decision. He decided to follow his gut.

In a relaxed atmosphere, with her guard down, he just might get something worth knowing out of her before she hid behind counsel. Something deeper than the obvious was going on here. He kept seeing the way she’d leaned her head against the door when she had closed it. She’d seemed beaten. Overwhelmed.

Not murderous.

If it turned out he was wrong, there was nothing saying he couldn’t bring her in later. Fox tugged on her arm. “Let’s go.”

Fear finally ripped past Tara’s bravado and took off with her pulse, unbridled. “You’re arresting me?”

“I haven’t decided yet. Tell you what. We’ll trade answers. Ladies always go first. What were you doing in Stephen Carmen’s home?”

“Who said I was?”

“I saw you leave with my own eyes!”

“Well, I refuse to answer on the grounds that it may incriminate me.”

“You can’t pull the Fifth! This isn’t court!”

“That’s just a technicality.” She waved a hand dismissively and hoped he didn’t notice how badly it shook.

He wasn’t actually committing himself to arresting her on the spot, she realized. Maybe she could get out of this. She knew how to be brazen, how to baffle her opponent with the outrageous. It had almost always worked with Stephen. Remembering his body on the library floor, Tara’s heart spasmed. She put the image from her mind.

“Let’s get back to basics,” she said. “You never showed me your badge. I want to know who I’m dealing with here.”

This time he did it. They stopped beside the house and he reached into the pocket of his jacket and withdrew a little leather case. He flipped it open but he moved his body as he did, edging in on her space, trapping her against the wall.

Tara couldn’t quite get her breath. Her head filled with his scent, something sharp yet smooth. It stroked her nerve endings and made things gather alertly all through her body. She fought the urge to squirm and concentrated on the badge he held in front of her nose.

Robbery-Homicide. That was the first thing she saw. He was one of those people who used initials—that was the second. His name was C. Fox Whittington. Tara took another quick, shallow breath. “What’s the C for?”

“What difference does it make?” He nearly snarled it.

“I’m curious. I like to be on a first name basis with anyone who arrests me.”

“Maybe you ought to put your mind to the trouble you’re in instead.”

Oh, she was in so very much trouble! Tara looked at his eyes in the thin moonlight. They were sharp, watchful eyes, totally at odds with that Southern drawl he had. Her teeth started chattering with a chill she wasn’t aware of feeling.

“M-my lawyer is Calvin Mazzeone. Take me to a telephone and I’ll c-call him.” Mentioning an attorney had stalled him once.

“Shut up and let me think about this.” Suddenly, she was shaking like a leaf, Fox realized. The hint of vulnerability—a shadow of how she had looked coming out of the house—touched him all over again. “We’re going to your house,” he decided. “We’ll talk there.”

“Isn’t that a little unconventional?”

“You want conventional? I’ve got cuffs in my car.”

“I wouldn’t want to put you to the trouble.”

She was right back on her game, he thought, his temper spiking again. Fox finished steering her around the house, maneuvering her toward the Shelby. He unlocked the passenger door and nudged her inside. “Here’s the way I see it. You must have left prints all over that house.”

“Stephen’s my stepbrother. I visit him all the time.”

He closed the door and went around to the other side of the car. “Stephen’s dead.” He slipped behind the wheel.

“He is?”

“Please try to control yourself. I can’t deal with all this grief while I’m driving.”

“Are you always this sarcastic?”

“No. You bring out the worst in me.” Somewhere in Savannah, Fox heard his whole family tree rolling over in their graves at his behavior.

“Then just drop me here at the curb,” she said. “I’ll find my own way home.”

Fox took his eyes off the road for a moment to look at her. “You came out of his house, damn it.” His gaze snapped forward again. “What’s your address, Ms. Cole?”

Of course, he’d guess who she was. Tara felt herself beginning to rattle apart again. “1222 Poplar Drive.”

“For real?”

“Why would I lie?”

“I don’t know. Maybe because you just killed your brother?”

“Stepbrother.” She hissed it, the first real emotion he’d heard in her tone so far.

“So why did you kill him?”

“I refuse to answer—”

“Where’s the ruby?”

“I don’t have it.”

“Where’d you put it?”

“The—” Tara snapped her mouth shut again. He was hurling questions at her too quickly. She’d almost answered him and mentioned the dog.

She still didn’t know what that animal had been doing there in the first place and admitting that she knew it was there was as good as admitting that she’d been snooping around Stephen’s library tonight. It was probably not the best place to concede that she’d been until she managed to talk to her lawyer, Tara thought. Besides, he had the Rose, this…this cop with his gentle Southern drawl. His questions to the contrary were purely a smoke screen, intended to throw her off. The cops had to have found it. The ruby had landed right there on the library floor.

Whittington drove into the underground garage of her building. He showed his badge to the security guard and cruised on, looking for a place to park.

“Just pull over and let me out.” Tara crossed her arms over her chest. “You’re not staying.”

“Put coffee on. This could be a long one.”

“I don’t have to let you in.”

“Then I’d have something solid to charge you with. Obstruction of justice should keep you in a cell overnight.”

“That’s ridiculous. Cal could have me out on my own recognizance.”

“Do you want to take the chance?”

She didn’t. Tara got out of the car when he parked it and slammed the door hard.

He followed her into the garage elevator and they rode it silently to the seventh floor. Tara kept her lips pressed together as she strode down the hall with him at her heels. She unlocked the door and tried to shut it again before he got inside. He blocked it with his foot and pushed into the apartment behind her.

Fox looked around. There was magnificent view of the Schuylkill River from a long line of windows at the back of the living room. The boathouses there were trimmed with lights, looking like something out of a fairy tale. He liked that. Then his gaze came back to his immediate surroundings.

There was glass. There was cold white leather. The carpet was black. The prints on the walls were painfully, jarringly modern. The apartment was as sharp as her tongue and her cunning little mind.

He was damned if she was going to slip through his fingers, Fox thought. Even if she hadn’t actually killed anyone—and that was a big if, with nothing but his gut to hitch it on—something was going on here. She’d been inside that house.

He moved to the sofa and sat. “Where were we?”

“You were just leaving.”

“Let’s go over what I do know first.” He began ticking items off on his fingers as she stood in the center of the room, watching him. “Stephen Carmen is dead. And lo and behold, an hour or so after the dust settles, you come tiptoeing out his back door.”

She said nothing.

“It’ll take the lab a few hours to match your prints, but by tomorrow afternoon, I’ll have you on that, too.”

“I told you—”

“Ah. I forgot that part. You and the victim are related. You visited his library regularly. Your prints would logically be…well, everywhere.”

“Yes,” she conceded cautiously.

“Do you think a grand jury will believe you when you tell them that you habitually fondled Carmen’s fireplace poker?”

“Fondled?” She nearly choked. And in spite of every sane thing she knew about brazening out the hard spots in life, Tara’s gaze fell to his hands.

Her mind emptied of every plan of attack she might have had. His hands were a dichotomy, she realized. Though they were a gentleman’s hands with buffed, trimmed nails, they had a girth and a width to them that would be strong and persuasive. She could very easily imagine them…well, fondling.

Why was she thinking this?

“On top of all that,” he continued, “you resisted arrest.” He watched her mouth open in outrage, then snap shut again. He gave her a point for self-control. “And you committed assault upon my person.”

Her eyes narrowed dangerously as though she was contemplating more.

“I think even Cal Mazzeone is going to have his hands full with this one.” Fox sat back against the sofa, pleased with himself.

“Let’s try him.” She went for the sleek, ultramodern phone on a chrome-and-glass table by one wall.

Fox came to his feet. “Put it down.”

“Or what? You’ll shoot me?”

“Don’t tempt me.”

“Then charge me with something! Either you have cause or you don’t.”

Neither of them was getting an upper hand here, Fox realized. He did not intend to call this night a draw.

The silence between them drew out. Then he shrugged—a lazy gesture that brought to mind humid summer heat, Tara thought. He walked toward her. There was a lazy sense about the way he moved. He did it with more grace than a man should lay claim to. Tara eased back to give him plenty of room.

She let him take the phone from her hand. Even as he punched in a number, he watched her in a way that made her stomach do a slow roll. Like he was the devil himself and she was something he’d wanted for a very long time.

“Don’t worry about the stepsister,” he said suddenly to someone on the other end of the line. “I guess you could say that I have that situation…in hand.” He eyed her once more, another slow cruise of his gaze. “She doesn’t have the ruby. It’s not anywhere on her person. Trust me, I can be sure.”

Tara’s heart chugged. He was talking to whoever it was like they had no idea where the Rose was. Was it possible?

She opened her mouth to tell him that the stone was somewhere on the library floor, in the far corner, near the window. She caught herself just in time as he put the phone down. “Maybe Stephen…dropped it,” she offered. “You know, in the scuffle.”

“Who said there was a scuffle?”

“You did. You were the one who mentioned the fireplace poker. Or did he just stand there and let himself be conked with it?”

She was quick. It went with all her sharp edges, he thought. “Trust me. That rock is nowhere in the house.”

Then he saw her face change. Stark horror, a raw kind of distress, passed over her expression like a cloud over the sun. He felt another visceral tug of something that wanted to soften toward her, but he’d never met a woman who needed pity less or who irritated him more.

He left her and headed for the door. “You won’t want to leave the city for the time being, you hear?” Then he opened the door and stepped into the hall, closing it quietly again behind him.

Tara stared after him then she ran to throw the locks. She caught herself just in time and peered out through the peephole. He was still standing there, no doubt waiting for the sound of metal rolling. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

He’d quit. He’d given up. He was gone. She couldn’t believe her good fortune! But where was the Rose?

Tara turned slowly and leaned her back against the door. After a moment, she heard him move off outside and her breath rushed out of her. Then her gaze fell on her telephone table and her heart kicked all over again.

She ran to the table. It was glass—there was no way to misplace anything on it or beneath it. She dropped to her knees anyway and ran a frantic hand over the carpet. She gave a cry of outrage.

Her date book was gone.

Chapter 3

The lady was well and truly miffed.

Fox allowed himself to grin as the echo of Tara’s infuriated howl rolled down the hallway on his heels. It gave him his first sense of satisfaction in hours. He stepped into the elevator and took the date book from his pocket. It was going to be interesting reading, he thought, flipping through it. Then his cell phone rang.

“You’ve got it in hand?” Rafe demanded when Fox answered. “What does that mean? Where are you?”

“I’m at 1222 Poplar Drive.” As the elevator began its descent, Fox glanced down to make sure his jacket showed no signs of his earlier scuffle. “Where are you?”

“Headquarters. I—” Rafe broke off. “That’s the stepsister’s address.”

“Yes.” Fox stepped into Tara Cole’s elegant lobby and looked around at the top-notch Persian rugs and the marble reception desk. He knew that if he laid his palm against it, he would feel a chill.

It suited her. She was one cool customer.

“So where was she tonight?” Rafe asked.

“She was in the dead gentleman’s home.”

“What?”

There would be time enough later to explain why he didn’t have Tara Cole in custody at this very moment. In fact, Fox knew that he would have to explain—to Plattsmier if no one else. “I don’t want to pull her in yet.” He stepped outside onto Poplar Drive and crossed the street against traffic. At least one car honked its horn at his leisurely pace. “She didn’t kill him. I’ve got a hunch.”

“A hunch,” Rafe echoed. They generally respected each other’s gut instincts. “So is she involved at all?”

“I think so. I just don’t know how yet.”

Snow banked prettily in the common area across from her building. The public lanterns there made it sparkle. Fox looked around appreciatively as he settled onto a park bench. He gazed up at the seventh floor windows of 1222 and counted to ascertain which belonged to her apartment. He saw her pass in front of her living room windows. It appeared to Fox that she was talking on the phone. That made sense. He’d put money on Cal Mazzeone’s line being busy at the moment.

“Here’s what I’ve decided to do,” he continued finally. “We’ll need four officers here around the clock. One on the seventh floor—that’s where she lives. We’ll want one in the lobby, one here in the park across the street, and the last one over on Girard to keep an eye on the back of her building. The first two guys will be stationary, the other two will be tails, moving with her wherever she goes.”

“That’s a lot of manpower for a woman who didn’t do it.”

“She’s slippery as an eel and she has a tongue like a viper,” Fox explained. “I want to know every move she makes, every sigh she sighs, the caloric value of every bite of food she puts in her mouth, starting now. It’s the only way we’ll learn what she was up to tonight.” In the lighted window seven floors above him, he watched her drag a hand through all that long, wild, dark hair.

He’d always preferred blondes. Adelia had been elfin, pale, petite. Tara Cole couldn’t have been more her opposite. So what was it with this jerking sensation in the area of his chest at the way her hair fell down her back again when she moved her hand and let it go?

Still framed in the window, Tara put the telephone down hard. The room plunged into darkness as she left it. Then the next window lit up. Her bedroom. She came to the glass and lifted her arm, pausing just long enough that Fox wondered if she’d guessed he was out here. Then the blinds came down like a quick, hard slap.

Unfortunately, they did nothing to obliterate the shadowy hint of her movements. Fox thought it was entirely possible that she was peeling out of…whatever that thing was that she had been wearing tonight. His mouth went vaguely dry. His pulse started moving like the hands of an aborigine drummer.

“Huh?” he said into the cell phone.

Rafe had been talking, but now there was a spell of dead silence. “Did you just say huh? You? Mr. Smooth?”

“The connection’s bad.” Fox changed the subject quickly. “I’ll wait in the park across the street until I see surveillance take their places. As soon as she moves I want them to report in to us.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

On the seventh floor, her lights finally, blessedly went out.

“This one is going to be a challenge. The resort is twenty-three miles from Maine’s premiere coastal tourist area. Our job is to find out if those tourists can be persuaded to spend their vacation away from the beach.” Tara looked around at the people who had gathered at her conference room table for a meeting with her marketing firm. And though she’d managed to concentrate on the matter at hand so far, suddenly her train of thought derailed.

The Rose was in Stephen’s library—somewhere. If Whittington didn’t have it, then the cops had just missed it. But how was she supposed to get that…that detective with the blue eyes and the devil’s own grin to look for it against the far wall? How to do that without admitting that it had flown there when she’d knocked away the dog?

Come to think of it, Whittington hadn’t once mentioned the dog, she realized. Why not? For some reason, that disturbed her. A new band of tension tightened across Tara’s forehead and she rubbed at it.

She’d handled him perfectly Monday night. Perfectly. Sure, he’d swiped her date book, but he wasn’t going to find anything earth-shaking in it. In the end, he’d left her alone with that vague warning not to leave town. Which, of course, she was going to do first thing Monday morning. She had to fly to Maine on this project. She’d worked far too hard establishing the reputation of her marketing firm to let some guy with an initial-type name undermine it now.

Besides, she thought, he really had no right to hold her here. Cal Mazzeone had pointed out that Whittington couldn’t possibly have anything significant to tie her to the crime because she’d slept in her own bed these last two nights and Cal wasn’t scrambling for her expeditious arraignment. It was Wednesday and Whittington had made no further move, so Tara had to believe that Cal was right.

All that was well and good, but where was the Rose?

“Huh?” she said suddenly, realizing that her assistant in charge of research had said something to her. The people at the table exchanged frowns.

“Did you just say huh?” Eric, the assistant, asked.

“Of course not.”

Kim Koby, who ran the graphics department, cleared her throat. “Speaking as your friend and not your employee, maybe you should take a few days off.”

“Why would I want to do that?” They all knew how she’d felt about Stephen. None of them would expect her to grieve to the point of being unable to work.

“At least stay out tomorrow,” Debbie, her secretary said. “For the funeral.”

“The funeral will only take two hours in the afternoon.” She would go, Tara thought, for her stepfather’s sake, out of respect for Scott Carmen’s memory. And because she was the only family member left standing. But she wouldn’t—couldn’t—cry for him and she wouldn’t pretend.

They all knew that. An unsettled sensation began to shift in Tara’s stomach.

Debbie rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Laying low for a while might keep our competitors’ tongues from wagging,” she said. “We’ve had a cop watching our building entrance for two days now. If you’re home, maybe he’ll stand there.”

Tara frowned at her. It took two or three heartbeats for her words to sink in.

She ran into the hall and jogged back to her own office. She looked down out of her fourth floor window. There was no cop down there, but there was a guy in khakis loitering next to the mailbox. Tara waited three minutes, four, then five. The man didn’t leave.

She went slowly back to the conference room.

“How do you know he’s a cop?” she asked Debbie. Maybe he was a reporter lying in wait for her. The phones had been ringing off the hook with interview requests, all of which Cal had advised her to decline. The less she said at the moment, the better.

Debbie gnawed on her lip. “I don’t. But he’s armed.”

Tara felt her pulse speed off. “Armed?”

“I saw a gun in one of those under-the-arm holsters when his coat flapped open.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?” she demanded.

“I figured you were under enough strain.”

Tara fisted her hands to keep them from shaking.

Four years ago when her mother had died, she had been left with two things precious enough to keep her going. She’d had the Rose, a piece of her mother, a piece of her own past, a promise for the future. And she’d had this firm. She’d built it painstakingly. It was her baby, born of her expertise and her guts and her talent. In large measure, her employees were her family.

Stephen had swiped the Rose but she’d still had Concepts. Now, at one of the shakiest times of her life, her own staff was shielding her, closing her out.

“Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself,” she said quietly, then she waved a hand. “We’re done here. I’m going back to my office.”

Suck it up, she ordered herself, heading down the hall again. Get a grip. Damn it, she could deal with this on her own. She knew her way through the dark.

In her office, she inched up to the window again. She kept her eyes closed, then, with her palms pressed against the cool glass, she deliberately opened them again. And she looked down.

The khaki guy was still there.

At least it wasn’t Whittington, she thought helplessly. This guy wore a plain white button-down shirt under the ill-fitting raincoat that Debbie had mentioned. Absurdly, Tara found herself remembering how Whittington had been dressed Monday night, in that soft-as-butter leather jacket. She knew its texture because she’d had fistfuls of it when he’d first taken her down. The man definitely had a sense of style.

And why was she thinking about that when the Rose was missing, when Whittington felt strongly enough about her involvement in Stephen’s death to have put a cop on her? She was losing her mind. Maybe the horrors of the last few days were getting to her, even more than she realized.

Tara pressed a fist against her mouth while panic tried to fold her knees, both for what he was doing and for the effect he was having on her. Then she went back to her desk and forced herself to concentrate on the Maine proposal.

Fox sat at his desk in the Robbery-Homicide den on the eleventh floor of headquarters. The cop standing in front of him spoke earnestly.

“I talked to her doorman. He was pretty emphatic about her schedule,” Vince Migliaccio reported. “She always walks to and from her office, except on Wednesdays.”

“This is Wednesday,” Fox responded.

“Yeah. So she’ll be cabbing it tonight. It’s her dry-cleaning day. He says she always takes her clothes with her and comes home in a taxi. Maybe the cleaners is too far away for her to walk.”

“You’re sure about this?”

Migliaccio flushed and Fox felt sorry for him, but his caution was not misplaced. Migliaccio had had an outstanding opportunity to move up in the ranks last summer when he’d been assigned to back up Fox while Rafe had been out on suspension. He’d blown that job. Now—at least for the time being—he was back on patrol.

Fox knew that Rafe had hand-picked Migliaccio for this assignment to give the kid another chance. Fox thought that was a good idea but he sincerely hoped the young man had learned to keep a wall up between himself and the females involved in a crime.

Like he was doing? A sudden image of yards of black hair hit Fox’s mind hard. He saw it spilling over his hands the way it had when he’d struggled with Tara Cole in Carmen’s garden. He saw her tight, agile body encased in that black second skin.

“Huh?” he said to Migliaccio.

The officer looked at him strangely. “Are you all right?”

“Of course I’m all right.” Fox deliberately cleared his mind.

“She usually orders lunch in. That’s what the guy at the deli around the corner says.”

“What’s the name of the place?”

“It’s called Ernie and Vin’s and it’s on the corner of Brown and Twenty-fourth.”

Fox filed that away for future use. “Okay, good. Presuming she doesn’t leave the office earlier, I’ll take the watch over from Currey at five o’clock.” Phil Currey was the guy currently standing in front of her office building.

“Sure. I’ll tell him.” Migliaccio left.

Fox opened the lady’s date book again. Tara Cole was dining with a friend named Charlie at the Four Seasons tonight. She would be attending a black-tie event at a local gallery tomorrow night at nine. Fox decided he was looking forward to that one. He enjoyed art.

At twenty minutes past six, Tara stood up from her desk. Her nerves had been coiled like a child’s slinky toy all day, ever since she’d found out about the cop. She pressed the heel of one hand into each eye, then she turned to the window again and peered down.

The khaki guy was gone. She blinked to be sure but when she opened her eyes again, there was no one down there. Tara spun back to her desk. She slammed her palm down on the mouse, frantically trying to turn her computer off, then she spun for the closet in one corner of her office. She shrugged into her coat while groping for her bag of dry cleaning stashed on the floor.

“Eric!” she shouted. When she stepped out into the hall, her assistant popped his head out of his own office. “Lock up for me! I’ve got to go now, right now!”

“Well…sure.”

Tara ran down the hall and leaned hard on the elevator button. “Come on, come on, come on.” She wasn’t foolish enough to believe that Whittington wouldn’t send someone else to watch her. This would be the changing of the guard, that was all. She was pretty sure he had more than one officer spying on her. She’d noticed someone suspicious in the deli earlier.

Whittington’s cop brigade would catch up with her again at home, but that wasn’t the point. Eluding him for a while was merely payback for what he had done with her date book Monday night.

She had to let him know that he didn’t hold all the cards.

There was an available cab idling right at the curb when she reached the sidewalk downstairs. Tara switched her dry-cleaning bag to her left hand and reached for the door handle with her right.

“Allow me,” said a voice she recognized.

Tara shrieked. She jerked around blindly and her hands came up as though to ward off a blow. The laundry bag dropped at her feet. “You!”

“Northern women have such a hard time accepting hospitality.” Fox stepped around her and opened the cab door himself. “Ladies first.”

“No!”

“I won’t think less of you if you have a gracious moment.”

She felt helpless temper fill her head. Tara looked down while she tried to get her breath and her equilibrium back, while she got it under control. He wore really fine alligatorskin boots, she noticed. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d met a man who wore alligator boots. Why did he always have to look so damned good?

“Isn’t that an endangered species or something?” she muttered.

Amazingly, he followed her train of thought and looked down as well. “I’ve never met an alligator who didn’t deserve to be worn. Which may be more than I can say for that fur coat you’re wearing.”

Tara’s head snapped up and her gaze narrowed on him. “It’s faux.”

He grinned. “If that’s what gets your conscience through the night.” Then he ran a finger along her sleeve as though to be sure.

Tara felt the jolt of his touch clear through her coat. His eyes caught hers and held on in something that felt like a challenge…and she didn’t think it had much to do with her fake fur. Her breath caught all over again. He really was the devil incarnate, but for a crazy moment she found herself tempted to lose her soul to him.

The thought nearly stole her voice. “Go away,” she said hoarsely. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“Fine. You take this cab and I’ll take the next one. But, ma’am, we surely do need to talk.”

“Why? I told you everything I could possibly tell you Monday night.”

“You told me nothing Monday night.”

“Because there’s nothing to tell!”

“Well, see, I’ve had awhile to think about that now and I’ve decided you’re wrong.” He paused. “You were in Carmen’s home. Can we at least agree on that much?”

“I refuse to answer on the grounds that—”

“You can’t take the Fifth yet!”

“Why not?” she demanded. “You’re the law, I’m a citizen—”

“You’re a suspect!”

Her air punched right out of her, but she rallied. “That being the case, I refuse to answer—”

“Shut up!”

“You’re very rude.”

His blood pressure spiked. But what she had said was amazingly close to the truth, at least when he was in her company. “I’ve never had anyone try to trot the Fifth out at my most innocent question!”

“There’s nothing innocent about you, nothing at all.”

It was out before she knew she was going to say it. Tara turned away quickly before he could see the heat stain her face. He wouldn’t miss her blush, of that she was sure.

He caught her elbow and her pulse beat harder. “Talk to me,” he said, “if only to save your own pretty hide.”

She fell back on everything she knew about holding her own. She gave him a provocative smile as she looked back at him. “You like my hide?” Then the cabbie blared his horn and she jumped.

Fox bent to peer into the car. “Sit tight, pal.” He finally let go of her when he straightened. “Get in.”

“Give me my book back first.”

“I haven’t finished reading it. I’m finding it very entertaining.”

“Then you need a life, Blue Eyes.”

Fox opened his mouth to answer and found that he simply couldn’t. Anything that passed his lips right now would be angry, frustrated, and yes, rude. He thought of the life he might have been having right now if this woman hadn’t decided to secrete herself in her stepbrother’s home for some reason known only to her. He thought of the inviting blonde he’d left behind at Remmick’s on Monday to investigate this mess.

Tara moved quickly, sliding into the rear seat of the cab while he seemed preoccupied. She pulled the door shut fast and leaned forward in the seat. “Go!” she shouted at the driver.

“I been trying to,” the man complained.

Tara shot a glance backward as the car vaulted into traffic. Detective Whittington with the initialed name looked quite irate.

Tara laughed aloud, then the sound tried to strangle her. Her dry-cleaning bag was still sitting on the pavement next to Whittington’s slick, handsome boots. She watched him pick up the bag and get into the cab behind her.

Something told her she hadn’t seen the last of him.

Fox decided to keep the laundry, at least for the time being. He took it back to his own apartment, not far from hers on the north side of Girard College. He used his cell phone in the cab and touched base with both Rafe and Migliaccio. He sent Migliaccio to stand in front of Tara’s high-rise. As for his partner, the man was fretting over the virtues of pistachio ice cream and pregnant women.

“Don’t give it to her,” Fox advised.

“Don’t? I’d want to make sure where that meat cleaver of hers is first before I break the news.” Rafe’s wife, Kate, was a chef.

“Trust me on this one,” Fox said. “What goes down green comes up green.”

“No.”

“Oh, yes.”

“Ah, man.”

“Have a good night.”

“You’ve got everything under control? You don’t need me right now?”

Fox guessed by his partner’s tone that only a portion of his mind was on the case—and it was a small, tidy portion at that. “I’ve put snipers on top of every building near hers. If she moves, she’s gone.”

“Good. That’s great.”

Fox sighed. Life was different, he thought, when you had a woman.

He disconnected and glanced at the bag on the seat beside him, and the aborigine started drumming behind his eyes again. Correction, he thought. Life was different when you had the right woman. Some could purely drive you to a coronary.

The cab let him out in front of his condominium. The Shelby convertible was in his driveway. He ran a loving hand over her curves and angles as he passed it. He didn’t always take her out. Parking was hell in the city and she was the kind of animal who was built for speed rather than a slow prowl. Sort of like a certain brunette who was the key to this crime.

Damn it, he preferred blondes.

Fox went inside and dropped the dry-cleaning bag on his kitchen table. He grabbed a Guinness from the refrigerator. After a fortifying swallow, he pulled back a corner of the bag and peered inside. Peach-colored satin. With lace. He hooked a finger in and brought out a slim strap that was attached to a camisole.

The lady dry-cleaned her lingerie.

Fox dropped the strap and crumpled the top of the bag together tightly and fast. He swallowed deeply from his beer again. She wasn’t his type. She was dark and sultry, polished as glass and too quick on her feet. She had more sharp points than a porcupine. She wouldn’t know good manners if one jumped up and bit her on the nose, no matter that she had grown up in the lap of luxury. Some people like that thought it gave them the right to set their own rules.

At the bottom of it all, there was still another irrefutable fact, the biggest reason she shouldn’t appeal to him: she was the key to this crime. But all the same…he couldn’t get her off his mind.

Fox went to the telephone and made another call. He decided to take over tonight’s surveillance as well. Five minutes later, he showered then he spent an inordinate amount of time dressing so he could go loiter around the Four Seasons. At seven-thirty exactly, he fired up the Mustang, and headed back toward center city.

He was whistling Dixie.

Chapter 4

Tara didn’t go to the Four Seasons. She didn’t go to the art gallery on Thursday night. And by the wee hours of Friday morning, Fox’s mood had soured considerably.

He sat on the park bench across from her high-rise, reasonably sure that his eyebrows were rimed with frost. He’d been living in Philadelphia for nearly eighteen years now but he had never come to appreciate its Decembers. He did not know where the elusive Ms. Cole was at the moment, but he had a hunch that she was blissfully warm.

It had been pushing eleven o’clock before he’d started to realize that he’d somehow been duped. The fresh young artist the gallery had been celebrating had proven to be talented. By eleven, most of the kid’s work had sold—even Fox had snapped up an edgy, sharp-toned cityscape for one of his sisters who enjoyed that sort of thing. Tara hadn’t bought anything because she’d never arrived. He’d finally checked with the gallery owner. She’d RSVP’d that she would attend and hadn’t called back to change her mind.

Last night, at least, she’d phoned the restaurant to break her reservation. He’d only wasted fifteen minutes or so at the Four Seasons.

Fox called Rafe at midnight. He roused his partner from a sound sleep to have him contact the point men they had on the high-rise on Poplar Drive. Neither of them had actually seen her exit the place and Migliaccio was swearing she couldn’t have, but then, Migliaccio had said that about another woman once before.

Fox finally left the gallery at one o’clock. He took a cab to 1222 Poplar and relieved Migliaccio. Then he took up his seat on the bench and he waited.

Her apartment remained dark. The temperature plummeted. And at two-twenty, something itchy started up at the back of Fox’s brain.

He unclenched one frozen hand to take his cell phone out again, then he realized that he didn’t know her phone number. He called information instead. The number was unlisted. Of course it was. And Fox was too cold and too tired to use his authority to chip through the barrier.

With methodical deliberation, he put his cell phone back in his pocket and started across the street. Adrenaline and temper began to thaw him out a little. He flashed his badge at the security guard and went to the elevator while the guy’s worried eyes followed him. He hit the seventh-floor button hard, rode up, and went to her door. Then he knocked, just to be sure.

Where had she gone instead of the gallery? And damn it, it was practically three o’clock in the morning on a weeknight! He told himself he shouldn’t be surprised. Her date book was littered with engagement after engagement, night after night, week after week. And she dry-cleaned her lingerie. Who, pray tell, was she doing that for? He knocked again.

She was a social animal. She was at a club somewhere, dancing until dawn. He knocked harder.

Tara opened the door.

She wore an oversize Philadelphia Eagles sweatshirt and that dark hair of hers was a tangled cloud. A long-fingered hand came up to scrape it back from her forehead and her eyes—a color between midnight and dawn—were at half-mast. Then they flew open wide and she gave a shrieking sound.

She came at him, her expression that of a woman who had just seen a million demons spew forth from hell and she meant to banish each and every one of them from her threshold. Fox caught her wrists a split second before her fists made critical impact with any vulnerable part of his body. “Easy.”

“Easy? Easy? It’s the middle of the night! What are you doing?”

Given that he didn’t particularly want to be here anymore than she wanted him to be, Fox’s temper sparked. “If you would just do what you’re supposed to do, I’d be sleeping by now, too!”

She looked near-crazed with disbelief. “What am I supposed to do?”

He still had her wrists in his hands. He had the absurd thought that her skin was the texture of rose petals. No matter that she was more like the thorns on the branch. But her pulse beat hectically beneath his thumbs and her skin was still warm and soft with sleep.

“Dinner at the Four Seasons?” he said. “Does that ring a bell? And what about the gallery opening you were supposed to attend tonight?”

Her jaw fell open. “You’re stalking me?”

“I’m surveilling you. There’s a difference.”

“The hell there is. Get out of here!”

She wrenched her wrists free, planted her palms against his chest, and shoved hard. Fox took a couple of staggering steps backward, then the door slammed shut in his face.

“That was definitely assault on a police officer!” he shouted.

The door behind him opened and caught on a safety chain. “Quiet down out there before I call the police!”

“I am the—”

The opposite door slammed shut as well before he could finish. It was that kind of night.

Tara’s alarm clock was something she had gotten at Disneyland when she was twelve, in one of those rare, perfect vacations with just her mother and her stepfather and a nanny. It had been a business trip for Scott Carmen—all of them had been—but she’d gotten her mother’s nearly-undivided attention for hours at a time and Stephen had stayed behind at prep school.

Mickey and Minnie embraced each other at a quarter past six and sent up a chorus of joyous music. The sound was normally one that Tara cherished. But this morning, seconds after opening her eyes, life came tumbling back in on her.

He’d come knocking on her door in the middle of the night! And he had touched her. He’d wrapped his fingers around her wrists and the contact had been anything but Southern or lazy. She’d felt a crackling summer storm where their skin had connected.

What was happening to her? She hadn’t even remembered to call the gallery last night to change her RSVP! He was getting into her life and rocking her world. She had to shake him loose before she forgot herself and let herself believe that these reactions he incited in her could possibly matter.

He thought she’d killed Stephen. There was no sense in letting a man like that get too close, no matter how tempting it was to let the slow, sexy heat of him burn through her loneliness. And when had she decided he was sexy or that she was lonely?

Her heart began to thud frantically. Tara swung her legs over the side of the bed. She went to the kitchen and ran her hand down the front of the coffeemaker, flicking on the knob she’d set last night. The machine began pouring forth brown liquid. Then she finally gave a hoot of laughter and some of the tension evaporated from her muscles.

Whittington thought her date book was gospel.

For a moment, she contemplated letting him believe that and chase his own tail for a while. It would be gratifying to watch. Except…he really was starting to get under her skin, she thought again. That was one problem. The other was how to turn the man in the right direction, away from her and toward the real killer and the Rose—assuming Whittington wasn’t sitting on the gem. She still clung to that possibility just a little.

Tara sipped coffee and went to her living room windows to check on the status of the cop who tended to hover at her home address. He was dark and burly and he was in the park again. Tara tossed back the last of her coffee in one scalding swallow and took it to the sink, then she went to the shower.

At ten minutes after eight, she left her apartment. She walked east on Poplar as she did nearly every weekday of her life. At the first corner, she paused to glance into the bowed window of a town home, shifting her weight slightly until she caught the reflection behind her.

The coast was clear. Mr. Big-Dark-And-Dangerous was gone. At least, she couldn’t spot him. Tara made her move.

A woman was entitled to some privacy, after all.

Fox had the sensitivity to move his phone away from his mouth while he brushed his teeth. Five hours of sleep. He was aware that there were those who considered that perfectly acceptable. He, however, had long ago learned to appreciate relaxation just as much as his accomplishments. He preferred a good solid seven hours. Eight was a boon.

He was tired this morning, and he was cranky. All because of her.

“Are you still there?” came Migliaccio’s voice.

Fox brought the phone back. “Unfortunately.”

“I said she’s moving.”

“I heard you.”

“She’s heading toward her office. What do you want me to do?”

“I’ll intercept you on the corner of Poplar and Twenty-seventh. I’ll take over there.”

“Okay—no, wait.”

Fox’s nape prickled. “Wait? Why wait?”

“She’s moving off target. She just took a turn onto Twenty-eighth. She’s heading south now, toward Parrish.”

Her office was on Parrish, but it was on Parrish and Twenty-third. And Fox knew for a fact that she always took Poplar to Twenty-third, then she turned south. They’d been watching her all week. She never broke from custom.

What now? Fox swore. Was this woman ever where she was supposed to be? “Stay on her. I’m on my way.”

He paused long enough to snag his leather jacket from the coat closet. He wished he’d had it with him last night. The tips of his fingers might not be so painful this morning if he could have enjoyed its pockets. He was pretty sure he had frostbite. All his digits would probably have to be cut off. Goodbye, career.

Her fault. All of it.

He took the Shelby. Migliaccio and the lady were on foot but they were five blocks ahead of him. He spotted Migliaccio at Parrish and Twenty-fifth. He slid the car into a rare spot at the curb. Migliaccio bent to the passenger window and Fox lowered the glass. The cop was alone. Tara was nowhere in sight.

“Where is she?” Fox demanded.

Migliaccio pointed a thumb behind him. Fox shifted in his seat to look over the man’s shoulder. He read the name on the store front there. “Toyland?”

“Does she have kids?” Migliaccio asked.

“No.” One of the first things Fox had done was run a profile on her. Her mother had married the wealthy entrepreneur Scott Carmen when Tara was four. The whereabouts of Will Cole, Tara’s natural father, were unknown. Scott Carmen had had one child by a previous marriage— Stephen. Stephen had never married, had never passed on his pudgy-faced genes. For that matter, Tara had never married, either.

“Well, Christmas is only a week away,” Migliaccio said. “She seems to be shopping for somebody.”

Fox thought that seems to be was a really dangerous phrase where this woman was concerned. “I’ll take over from here.”

He waited in the car after Migliaccio took off. Ten minutes later, Tara came out of the store empty-handed. She headed east again. She didn’t notice him. Fox took up his cell phone and tagged Currey, who was posted at her office building.

“She’s coming toward you, on Parish from Twenty-fifth. If she doesn’t show up in three minutes, ring me back.”

He got out of the Shelby and went into the toy store. A delicate bell tinkled over Fox’s head as he stepped into a winter wonderland. White fairy lights trimmed every wall and window. There were no laser guns or skateboards here. Action figures had never even gotten a toehold. A train set—Fox recognized the maker from his own childhood—traveled the room at the ceiling, chugging round and round. The dolls that flanked the walls wore porcelain faces. Everything was old and precious. Americana at its finest.

“Can I help you, sir?”

Fox turned to find a granny-type woman wearing a long red dress with a white apron. She had tight gray curls. She looked like Mrs. Claus. “Yes, ma’am. Do you work here?”

She smiled. “I own the place. Merry Christmas. Do you have a special child in mind today?”

He hated to ruin her day but he took his badge out anyway. “Ah, no. I have some questions about the woman who was just in here. The one in the fur coat.” Faux fur, he thought, then he found himself remembering that wide-eyed look of awareness she’d given him when he’d touched her sleeve. Something moved and resettled inside him. It felt a little like his heart.

“Tara Cole?” the woman asked, snagging his attention again.

Her question jolted Fox somewhat. “Do you know her? Does she come in here often?”

“No, but she always pays by credit card. I got her name from a receipt some time ago. I like to greet my customers personally.”

“What did she buy today?”

“The wall.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“That wall.”

The woman waved her hand. Fox turned. The shelves there were three steepled layers of the best of antiquity. Tops and puppets. Heavy, cast metal trucks—they didn’t make them like that anymore, he thought. He began to understand what the woman was implying. “She bought everything over there? But she didn’t take anything with her.”

He turned back to the woman just in time to see her kindly face harden. “We package everything and deliver it for her. What is this about? What could she possibly have to do with anything concerning the police?”

Fox realized that the woman only knew Tara from her credit card transactions. She obviously didn’t know who she was or that her stepbrother had suffered an untimely death right after she’d lost an heirloom ruby to him.

“She’s a wonderful woman,” she persisted. “Very polite. Kind.”

“I’m sure she is.”

“Why would you care what she bought?”

Fox put his badge away. “I’m just trying to find out more about her.” His heart moved briefly in his chest again as he realized how true that was becoming. For the first time he wondered about the exorbitant amount of overtime he was costing the city by keeping men on her around the clock. Because he thought she was the answer to this mystery…or to satisfy his own curiosity?

The idea didn’t sit well. He asked the next question anyway. “Where is she planning to send so many toys?”

“She has them sent over to St. Phillip’s. Father O’Neill there runs a Santa-For-The-Poor effort every Christmas.”

She’d just bought a whole wall of toys for charity, Fox thought. She was some kind of benevolent elf in dry-cleaned underwear.

The cop in him wanted to believe that she’d done this to whitewash her shaky image, that she’d known one of his tails would watch and see this and run straight to him with the information. The man in him wanted to believe that, too. He didn’t want her to be the kind of woman who gave Christmas to children who wouldn’t otherwise have one. It was easier to remember that she wasn’t his type when she was aggressive and sharp and outrageous.

He found himself wondering if even Adelia would have thought to do such a thing. He realized he couldn’t be sure. Her memory was getting lost beneath Tara’s sharp-tongued quips, heated eyes…and all that incredible hair.

Fox stepped for the door again, then he stopped. And this question, he thought, had nothing at all to do with the investigation. “One last question. What would something like that cost?”

The woman hesitated. “Three thousand twenty-two dollars. And change.”

“And she sent all of it to Father O’Neill? None to distant relatives, or to the children of friends?”

“No, not this time. Although occasionally something will catch her eye that she wants for herself.”

“I see. Thank you.” Fox went back outside, feeling decidedly uncentered.

Tara was pleased with herself. She crossed her arms over her chest and looked down at Mr. Raincoat standing below her office window. She’d stolen half an hour for herself and she was as giddy with the victory as she would be over an all-expense-paid trip to Hawaii.

But inevitably her thoughts curled back to the ruby. She hadn’t told Uncle Charlie what had happened when she’d called him to cancel their dinner the other night. She’d only told him that there’d been a breakdown in her negotiations with Stephen—and now, of course, Stephen was dead. Charlie had not attended the funeral. He had no fond feelings for the Carmens and he certainly didn’t consider that he owed them anything.

Tara couldn’t bear the thought of Charlie realizing that now she didn’t know where the Rose was at all. She had to find out if Fox Whittington had the stone before she talked to the old man again. Because if the cops really didn’t have it and it wasn’t in the library…then Stephen’s killer had it. That possibility was gnawing at Tara’s gut almost constantly now, like a small vicious animal that got bigger and stronger with every day that passed.

One way or the other, she reasoned, she had to know. At noon she reached for her telephone, not at all sure what she would say when and if she got Whittington on the line, knowing only that she had to do something to nudge him in the right direction before anymore time was wasted. It buzzed as soon as she touched it.

Debbie’s voice came over the intercom. “It’s Mrs. Beckley over at Toyland on Line One.”

Tara grinned. She was due for some good news for a change. The woman had been searching for a certain doll for her collection for months now. She grabbed the phone. “You found it!”

“Oh, dear. I’m afraid not.”

And that quickly Tara felt her stomach roll.

Whittington. Somehow she knew, against all odds, that this call had something to do with Fox Whittington.

“There was a police detective here after you left,” Mrs. Beckley said fretfully. “I struggled with myself for hours but I finally decided that you have a right to know.”

“Thank you,” Tara said tonelessly. “What did he want?”

“He asked who you sent the toys to.”

Her stomach spasmed in panic. “It’s none of his business! It has nothing to do with this mess!”

“Well, I couldn’t know that, dear. I have no idea what sort of mess you’re in.”

“I’m not in a mess! He just thinks I am! Did you tell him?”

The woman’s hesitation was her answer. Tara hung up. Her phone buzzed again immediately. She snapped it up and snarled into it. “What?”

It was Debbie again. “Your lunch is here.”

Tara took a moment to breathe. It would be a chicken Caesar salad then, she thought, instead of the satisfaction of committing murder upon Whittington. That was probably best. Killing a police officer—a detective—could get a little dicey in a court of law.

“Thanks,” she muttered. “Send it in.” She hadn’t quite hung up the phone again when her office door opened too quickly.

“I would have taken you for the crudités and dip sort,” Fox drawled. “Not anchovies.”

Tara’s heart slammed once. Then she reached for a paperweight on her desk and heaved it.

Whittington ducked it neatly and it sailed out into the hall, thudding against the wall there more or less like the Rose had done Monday night. Then he stood in her doorway, leaning one leather-clad shoulder against the jamb. He held her lunch.

“What have you done with the delivery boy?” she demanded.

“What did you do to Stephen?” he countered. He straightened away from the door and sauntered into the room.

Tara’s breath fell short as he faced her over her desk. The sudden heat of the air between them seemed to hum, like it could do right before lightning struck. She snagged the bag from his hands to break the spell. “Don’t wait for a tip.”

“I’ll settle for information.”

“Then buy a newspaper.”

“What are you hiding?” His voice was suddenly soft and thoughtful as he leaned one hip on her desk. “And why?”

Tell him. The whispery thought was sneaky and insidious in her head. But then, it had been tantalizing her all morning. If she told him, he would leave her alone. If she told him everything that had happened Monday night, he would admit that he had the ruby. Maybe. If he really did have it at all. And if he didn’t, then he’d start looking in the right place for it.

“What does my date book have to say on the subject?” she asked instead.

Incredibly, he took it out of his pocket and flipped it open with deliberate nonchalance. He kept it with him? Tara fought the urge to grab for it.

“It says you’re a very busy lady,” he murmured thoughtfully.

“I am. I have work to do. You’ll have to go.”

“Where were you last night? Really.”

“In bed. Asleep, until you woke me. I had a headache, which you gave to me.”

A grin tugged at one corner of his mouth. “Tell me the truth, darlin’, and I promise I’ll go.”

Her muscles turned to something that felt like warm molasses. Darlin’…such gentle persuasion. Tara sat quickly in her desk chair and pulled her lunch toward her.

She wore denim today, Fox noticed, trim jeans and a starched white shirt. Small silver and turquoise studs decorated her ears. And that glorious hair fell wildly past her shoulders in artful disarray. On her feet were black boots with silver buckles.

Not his style, he told himself again. Not at all. He felt his pulse give a kick as he tried to imagine Adelia in boots and turquoise and failed miserably. Everything about this woman said class, strength, confidence, cool aplomb…but then he saw a hint of something in her eyes before she averted them.

He was starting to get to her but he found less satisfaction in that than he would have a week ago. There were layers to her, he realized. There was a certain delicacy after all beneath that will of iron, and it shook him more than he cared to admit.

As he watched, she lifted the anchovies from her salad and set them aside. So he’d been right about that. Fox reached for the little plastic fork that had come with her lunch. He speared a piece of romaine, then one of the anchovies before she slapped his hand. He managed to get the morsel to his mouth anyway.

“Go buy your own food,” she growled.

“Where were we? Ah, I remember now. I was asking you for the truth.”

“Are we going to trade questions again?”

“If you like.”

“I like. What does the C in your name stand for?”

Like the first time she had asked, a quick spasm of discomfort seemed to touch his features. She was onto something here, Tara realized. For once, he was off balance. She filed the discovery away for future reference.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said.

“Carnivorous?” she guessed. “Crass?” He shot her a warning look. “It must be something particularly unflattering or you’d tell me.”

“I’m not telling you because it’s none of your business.”

“I could say the same thing to you about my date book.”

“Except you killed someone and stole a ruby, which more or less negates any right you might have to privacy.”

The hurt was quick and stunning, though he’d said it before.

She didn’t, wouldn’t care what he thought of her. But she did care about the Rose. Desperately. “If I talk to you,” she countered, “will you leave me alone?”

If she coughed up the truth then this intriguing game of cat-and-mouse would be over, Fox thought. He felt the oddest sense of disappointment shift inside him. When, he wondered, had she become intriguing? “That’s what I’ve been angling for,” he said shortly.

“Then give me a day, maybe two, to think about it.”

“With all due respect, the trail could get very cold by then.”

“So go look for your killer elsewhere. It’s not me.”

“And what do I have to base that on?”

“My word.”

She looked at him and now her eyes were more midnight than dawn. And he found himself believing her intrinsically, with something in his soul.

Fox fought off the sensation…hard. She’d been there, damn it. Granted, there was barely a trace of physical evidence to tie her to the scene so far, only a couple of perfect fingerprints on the library phone. They were as yet unmatched because her own weren’t on file so he had nothing to compare them to—unless he arrested her. The fireplace poker had been wiped clean.

He’d stake odds that she’d been the one to call 911 and he’d be able to match her voice to the tape. He figured she’d done it because she’d discovered Stephen dead on his library floor. But had she arrived to find him that way or had something transpired—had he somehow ended up dead—while she was there?

Fox rose from her desk. “If it’s all the same to you, I’m just going to keep an eye on you while you make up your mind.” He was halfway to the door again when her voice made him pause.

“The toys had nothing to do with this. Why couldn’t you have just left that alone?”

He glanced back at her. “Because it’s my job not to. By the way, you could have saved a mint doing that shopping at a department store.”

She came to her feet in anger. “Then most of those kids would never know how it could have been.”

It was a flat statement, but he understood. Plenty of people would donate action figures and the standard games to Father O’Neill’s cause. Tara was giving them something to cherish.

Fox could have sworn he felt his heart move in his chest.

“I want you out of my life,” she whispered.

“I know,” he said just as quietly.

Fox stepped through her office door and closed it behind him. Suddenly, he had the ridiculous but very strong feeling that when this was cleared up, when he did leave her life…there’d be nothing. Nothing but perfect toys for strangers.

Chapter 5

“You’re entirely too trusting, my dear,” Marshall T. Ellinghusen said. “You believe in the integrity of the law, and that’s admirable, but were it ever so sterling as you imagine I would not be driving this Rolls.”

Tara’s gaze skipped to the lawyer across the front seat of the automobile in question. Cal Mazzeone’s area of expertise was probate court. When she’d called him Friday night to tell him what she wanted to do, he’d insisted that his partner should accompany her to police headquarters. Marsh Ellinghusen had rescued all manner of rapists, thieves and killers from the jaws of the State penitentiary. He practiced criminal law.

So what was she doing with him? Tara wondered dazedly. All she wanted was to make a statement and tell the truth. She wanted this whole business over.

When she’d finally gotten to the dry cleaner’s at a quarter past six on Friday, Fox Whittington had strolled in right behind her, holding her bag of clothing. On Saturday night, he’d personally stood guard beneath her apartment window and she’d felt his gaze run over her skin like warm sand even though he was seven floors and a city street away. On Sunday morning he’d knocked on her door holding the morning’s newspaper and a bag of croissants. That was why she and Ellinghusen were floating across the city as gently as though the Rolls were a feather on the breeze. It was why each heartbeat carried her closer to potential disaster.

“I didn’t do anything,” she said for what seemed like the thousandth time.

“Which is precisely why we ought to leave well enough alone.” Ellinghusen turned onto Eighth Street. “You’re opening a can of worms and all manner of nastiness could spew forth. Please don’t forget that anything you say today can be used against you in a court of law if this detective doesn’t like the sound of it.”

Tara shrugged stiffly. It was a risk she had to take.

Every moment Fox Whittington spent sniffing around her was one in which the real killer was slipping away. And if Whittington truly didn’t have the Rose and Stephen’s killer did, then that was intolerable. It was almost as painful as having him sift through all the shadows and corners of her world.

At first it had amused her that he thought her date book in any way reflected her life. Then he had grilled Betty Beckley and he’d found out about the toys. He’d asked the gallery owner about her, not to mention her doorman. Tara’s heart beat like the wings of a bird trying to take flight at the thought of anybody getting inside the walls of her life that way.

And Fox Whittington wasn’t just anybody. He was a man whose touch she could feel through faux fur. He made the air change when he got too close to her. He said things like darlin’. He had to go, she thought, before he did any of that again.

Marsh Ellinghusen parked in the municipal lot across from police headquarters with only a minimal wince at the idea of leaving a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of automobile in such squalid surroundings. They went inside, where Whittington and his partner were waiting for them in the Robbery-Homicide office.

Surprise kicked inside Tara. Somehow, she’d envisioned that it would be just her and Whittington, one on one, with Ellinghusen hovering protectively in the background. But as soon as they entered the large common area the R-H detectives shared, a man with shaggy golden hair pointed to an interrogation room at the back.

“I’m Rafe Montiel,” he said. “I work with Fox. Let’s do this in there. It’s more private.”

Tara nodded mutely. She did not want to look at Whittington but her gaze was drawn to him anyway. He lounged in a chair behind one of the desks. He wore dark blue slacks and a blue oxford shirt with the sleeves rolled up on his forearms. He bounced the tip of a pen up and down on the blotter. He looked relaxed, even lazy, but he had the sharp and steady eyes of a hawk.

Then Rafe Montiel pulled a tape recorder from a desk drawer and suddenly Whittington was on his feet.

“I’ll take care of this,” he said.

His partner looked at him and lifted a brow. He handed him the tape recorder.

Whittington shook his head. “I’ll do it the old-fashioned way.” He took a notepad from his desk instead.

Tara followed them into the interrogation room on unsteady legs. What had that been about?

Ellinghusen was behind her, keeping close. When they were all seated at the long, metal table inside the room, the lawyer spoke in a rich, intimidating baritone. “You should know that I’ve strongly advised my client against doing this.”

Fox gave him a mild nod. “I’m sure you have.”

“It’s clear you have nothing to charge her with, no evidence to speak of.”

“Barely even any fingerprints in Carmen’s home.” His blue devil’s eyes found Tara’s. “I consider that somewhat remarkable given that she visited her stepbrother with such regularity. Isn’t that right, Ms. Cole?”

There was no time like the present, Tara thought. “Actually, I lied about that part.”

Marsh Ellinghusen made a sound as though he was choking. “I’d like a word with my client before we go any further.”

“It’s okay,” Tara told him, though she had no idea if it was or not. But something drove her now and it was hard and hot and urgent. She had to be honest with Fox Whittington or somehow she knew this would never be over. She’d never get the Rose back, and he would be there, moving through all the little cubbyholes of her life, forever. “I rarely visited Stephen,” she said. “I hated him.”

Whittington scribbled something on his notepad.

Ellinghusen came to his feet. “I have to insist—”

“I was only there that night to try to buy the Rose back from him,” Tara interrupted quickly. “And I only touched the telephone. If you found just a few prints, then I’d guess that’s where they were.”

A corner of Whittington’s mouth tugged into a brief smile. It was acknowledgment enough, she thought.

“You called 911,” he said.

Tara nodded, her turn to concede. “The front door was open when I got there. I thought that was odd but I went in anyway. I went down the hallway to the library because that is—was—Stephen’s favorite room. It used to be his father’s place and I think it fed Stephen’s ego to take it over after Scott died. Anyway, I figured that was where I would find him.”

She was telling the truth.

Fox watched her face. So far, at least, every word she spoke was from her heart. He knew because her gaze had turned inward. She walked through the night again in her memory, her dark eyes seeing things he couldn’t see. Fox put his pen down carefully and ignored Rafe’s questioning look.

“And I did find him,” she said quietly. “I guess what you need to know is that he was already dead.”

“What time was this?”

Tara’s gaze sharpened on him again. “We were supposed to meet at seven o’clock. It was a few minutes after that when I arrived.”

The coroner had put Carmen’s time of death at no later than five-thirty. Fox leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers behind his head. “How did you get there?”

“How? I took a cab.”

“Do you remember the company?”

“I always call Yellow.”

Even better, Fox thought. They could verify it then. She was as innocent as he was and now he could prove it to Plattsmier. He briefly considered dancing a jig on a table-top. He opened his mouth to ask another question when she frowned.

“Why aren’t you writing any of this down?” she asked.

Fox straightened in his chair. “I’ve got a photographic memory.”

Tara put her hands quickly beneath the table. “What kind of stone is in my pinky ring?”

He felt the first moment of percussion behind his eyes, telling him that another headache was coming on. “You never told me what kind of stone it is.”

“So you only remember what you’re told?”

“What’s your point?”

“What’s my secretary’s name?”

“I don’t know. She never mentioned it.”

“You’re sure about that?”

Fox had a perfect image of wrapping his hands around that long, graceful throat of hers as she tilted her chin up haughtily. “What are you up to?” he asked warily.

“I’m checking your memory.”

“I’ll help you. We were talking about what happened just as you arrived at Stephen Carmen’s home last Monday night. Does that sound about right?”

“Close enough. But I still want to know why you’re not writing any of this down. For that matter, why didn’t you want to use the tape recorder?”

“Tara, please desist,” Ellinghusen said.

Fox flashed the man a glance. “Good point, counselor. Muzzle your client.”

Muzzle her? Tara opened her mouth, enraged, then her air left her in a painful rush as she realized she’d been right.

He was protecting her. She knew it as surely as she knew her own name, as certainly as she knew that the stone in her ring was another ruby. It was a small one her mother had given her when she was six to amuse her until she grew up and could have the Rose. She cherished it almost as much as the real thing.

But Fox didn’t know that. He’d never noticed her ring at all. And without writing it down or taping it, he wasn’t going to remember the finer details of what she’d said so far. For some reason she couldn’t begin to fathom, he was bending the rules for her. He wasn’t allowing her to incriminate herself. If she said anything iffy and it was on tape, it would be caught for posterity. As long as he took notes, if she shot herself in the foot it would simply be a matter of not writing something down.

She wasn’t giving a statement here, she thought shakily. They were having an…an unofficial chat. But why? Something soft and achy and vulnerable filled her and it terrified her even more than the thought of going to jail.

Tara sat back in her chair. “As soon as I called 911,” she said carefully, “it dawned on me that maybe Stephen had been killed for the ruby. That frightened me. So I hung up to look in the safe.”

Still, he didn’t write anything. “It seems to me that a lot of people are inordinately captivated by this rock.”

“It’s not just a rock.”

Fox shrugged. “I’ve read up on it. Twenty-four carats. Red. Big deal. We’ve got the Hope Diamond, the—”

“My great-grandmother brought it from Hungary,” she interrupted.

“So?”

“So do you read the newspapers? Do you know anything about collectibles? Do you know how she got it?”

Fox waited, knowing she would tell him…and because he was bewitched by the fire that was suddenly in her eyes.

Here was another layer, he thought, and he’d peeled his way down to it intentionally. She’d rarely been passionate about anything in the short time he’d known her. She controlled those impulses, he realized, and she did it fiercely. But they were there, like lava shifting and swimming beneath the hard surface of the earth. He’d gotten a rise out of her once when he’d referred to Stephen Carmen as her brother, and now, talking about this gem, he’d done it again.

“Her name was Tzigane Romney,” Tara said. “She was a Gypsy, but not just any Gypsy. She was one who could see.”

“See,” Fox repeated with deliberate blandness. But his heart shifted a little. In that moment, he could see Tara that way, too, with her long, black hair catching and gleaming with the orange hues of firelight. He imagined a long, bright skirt swirling about her ankles as she danced barefoot. Her arms would be stretched to the heavens, to embrace all that was hers by birthright. Magic. Heat. Passion.

Fox blinked and rubbed his eyes.

“She had a sixth sense,” Tara explained. And for a woman who was cool, calculating and cosmopolitan, she didn’t bat an eye when she said it. “Tzigane knew things.”

Fox felt Ellinghusen shift uncomfortably in his seat beside him. He glanced at his partner; Rafe was scowling, too. “Go ahead,” he said. “Enlighten me.”

“Okay. There are two versions of the story. One has it that the Blood of the Rose—that’s its full name—was given to Tzigane by a poor but titled nobleman when she read his fortune and gave him accurate advice that brought him untold riches. He searched long and hard to find her again and he gave her the ruby in gratitude. The other story says that she had a wild and memorable affair with the gentleman.”

“And he gave her the Rose as a gift of love.”

Tara leaned forward. “Yes. Because, of course, nothing could come of their relationship. It was a way to insure that she would never forget him.”

“Why wouldn’t anything come of their relationship?” he had to ask.

“They were too different.”

“Different,” he repeated.

“He was an aristocrat. He was polished, genteel, and she was a vagabond. She was the moon and the stars and the earth. She rode the wind on a black pony.” Tara sat back again and lifted a shoulder as if to say there you have it.

For some reason he couldn’t explain, it made Fox angry. “Opposites can attract. Just because one person prefers a few social graces to a more no-holds-barred attitude, it doesn’t mean they can’t be compatible.”

“Who said anything about compatibility?” Tara frowned at him.

“You did.”

“No, I didn’t. They were just from two different worlds, worlds that could never jive.”

Fox forced himself to relax again. “And they never tried.”

Her scowl deepened. “Who knows? The point is, once she had the Rose, Tzigane got her heart’s desire. Money fell into her hands for passage on a ship sailing to America. That was in 1919. Freedom in our land of plenty was what Tzigane cherished most.”

“It was her fondest wish.”

“Exactly. When she died, she passed on the Rose—and its benevolence—to my grandmother. And then she got her heart’s desire.”

Something nudged up against the back of Fox’s mind. Romney. He knew the name and then he placed it. “Your grandmother was Anastasia Romney, the Broadway actress.” He thought her answering grin was like the firelight he had been imagining a moment ago—hot and teasing and just a little wicked.

“Yes. Tzigane still wasn’t up to snuff with the aristocrats even after she arrived in America. She gave birth to Anastasia out of wedlock. But by the 1940s when Anastasia hit the stage, it didn’t matter so very much anymore. In a way, it just added to her mystique. It made her more famous. You see, the Rose brings untold good luck to whoever possesses it—a woman’s deepest wish, if you will. Tzigane craved the bounty and freedom of America.”

“More than she craved her nobleman.” For some reason, Fox thought, he was stuck on that.

Tara nodded. “And Anastasia coveted fame.”

“What did your mother want?”

Tara hesitated briefly. “Security would be my guess—a safe and staid life where the money would never run out. My grandmother squandered her wealth. By the time she died when my mother was twenty-three, her career was long over and there was no money left. I know that was hard on Mom. But she met Scott Carmen that year, after her mother bequeathed her the Rose.”

Fox noticed how she skipped over any reference to Will Cole, her own father. And earlier, she’d referred to her stepfather by his first name—impersonally, as she would a mere acquaintance. He would have to think about all that later. It felt important.

“The thing is, the Rose’s luck is a two-way proposition,” Tara continued. “It has a dark side. It’s said that Tzigane put a curse on it. If any of us lets it go out of the family, the price will be death.”

“That’s ridiculous.” Fox was about to point out that if the courts were to be believed, Letitia Cole Carmen had done exactly that. Then he realized that she had subsequently died in an avalanche while vacationing in Switzerland. A chill touched his spine, one he didn’t want to contemplate too closely.

“What about you?” he asked. “Does the curse extend to you?”

Tara hugged herself. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. I didn’t let the Rose go voluntarily. I’ve done everything I can to get it back.”

Fox felt something tighten around his spine, making him straighten again. There was something about the way she said it. She hadn’t said that she was safe from the stone’s curse because she’d gotten it back. “So where is it? Where’s Tzigane’s Rose now?”

Her gaze locked on his. “You’ve got it. You just said you didn’t to trick me into talking.”

Fox leaned forward across the table. “Tara, I’ve never laid eyes on the thing.”

The cry that slipped from her throat was pained. She came to her feet with it. “It was there! In the library, on the floor. Did you look on the floor near the window?”

“We had technicians all through there. And I went over every inch of the room myself as well.”

“You missed it then. And they did.”

“It’s not possible. Start back where you left off. You said you hung up on the 911 call because you thought someone might have killed Stephen for the ruby. You looked in the safe.”

Tara sat again as though she had just discovered her bones were made of sand, and it was all pouring out of her. “No. I started to go to the safe. It was open. But then I stepped on it. The ruby was on the floor.”

His investigative antenna went on alert again. “Where?”

“Behind Stephen’s desk. I picked it up, then I heard the dog.”

Fox felt his expression go slack and blank. “What dog?”

“That little ugly thing. You must have seen it. It was in the library, some kind of Chihuahua, I think. I tried to run and it jumped on my leg. It wouldn’t get off. So I tried to swat it away and I lost my grip on the ruby. It went flying toward the wall near the window.”

The quick, loud jolt of Rafe’s laughter cracked the tension in the room. “A Chihuahua?” Rafe asked.

“Something like that,” Tara said, glancing his way. “It was little with big ears.”

“Did she have a crooked nose?” Rafe asked. “Like maybe she had been shot there?”

Tara’s eyes widened. “Yes! How did you know that? I remember thinking that there was something wrong about her muzzle.”

“Did you see this animal?” Fox asked his partner. What the hell was going on here?

“Nope,” Rafe said, then he backpedaled. “Not recently, away.”

“What is it with you and dogs?” Fox demanded. This was the second case where Rafe’s radar had honed in on one. The last time was the case in which he’d gotten involved with his now-pregnant wife.

Rafe was still laughing as he headed for the interrogation room door. When he left the room, Fox thought he was muttering something about love, murder and mayhem.

“Are we done here?” Tara asked.

Fox’s gaze finally pulled away from his partner’s retreating back. “One last question. Where were you in that house? I looked everywhere.”

Some of her color came back. “I hid in the pantry closet.”

“I looked there.”

She held his eyes. “I know.”

His temper kicked a little. “Why didn’t you just tell me all this on Monday?” She could have saved him a lot of energy, not to mention manpower.

“Stephen Carmen hurt me more times than I can tell you. I knew dying wouldn’t stop him from doing it again. As it was, you believed I killed him. What would your reaction have been if you’d found me standing over his body?”

He hadn’t believed she’d killed Stephen Carmen, Fox thought indignantly. From the moment he’d watched her lean her head against the back door of that house, something had bothered him about the whole situation. And he’d been sitting on that bench in the first place because the case had been coming together too easily.

But he was honest with himself. He’d always been open to the possibility that she’d committed murder. And if he had found her right there with the body, Fox knew she would probably have spent the night in jail. It seemed absurd to apologize for doing his job, but the words were on his tongue anyway. Then she stood.

“May I go now?” she asked.

“You can’t leave the city—”

“Oh, stuff it. I was supposed to go to Maine on business today and I intend to do it tomorrow. Am I a suspect or not?”

Not. She had him there. But every moment he spent with her was turning out to be one in which he wanted to know more about her. And if she wasn’t involved in this investigation, then she was…gone.

“This is an ongoing investigation,” he hedged.

“Then investigate without me. I gave you what you wanted. Now leave me alone and go find the Rose.”

She left the interrogation room. Fox watched her go, struggling for some legitimate reason to hold her. Then he heard her shriek.

He came out of his own chair so fast it toppled over. He collided with her attorney in the doorway. He squeezed past the larger man first. When he managed to reach the Robbery-Homicide den, Tara was staring at John Wesley, one of the other R-H detectives. The man was holding a small dog—okay, a Chihuahua, he conceded. And it had big ears and a crooked snout.

“That’s it!” Tara cried. “That’s the dog!”

“She’s yours?” Wesley asked. “I found her outside a little while ago, shivering in the cold. If she belongs to you, just take her.”

“Take her?” Tara’s voice rose again. “Take her? That dog started this whole nightmare! I’m going to kill her!”

The dog’s ears shot straight up then she leapt deftly from the detective’s arms. She ran out of the room, into the hall. Tara took off after the mutt and ran headlong into Rafe Montiel in the hallway. He caught her.

“You don’t want to do that,” he cautioned. “In fact, you’ll probably just want to take her home. Her name is Belle and generally she doesn’t leave until she’s good and ready.”

From somewhere down the hallway, Tara thought she heard the dog bark. The nasty little critter had ruined her life. She’d made her lose the Rose. She’d brought Fox Whittington into her world, some Southern-drawling cop in alligator boots who made the air heat when he got too close to her and who did odd things to protect her. Tara showed her own teeth.

“We’ll just see about that.”

Chapter 6

Five minutes later, Tara came back to the R-H room empty-handed. Montiel and the other detective had departed.

“She’s gone,” she said to Fox and Ellinghusen. “I don’t know where she got to, but good riddance.”

In response, Fox pointed over her shoulder. Tara turned, wary of his expression, to find the nasty little mongrel asleep on a pink blanket in the corner. Empty sandwich wrappings were laid out in front of her like roses at the feet of a queen.

It was impossible! “That corridor is a straightaway! She couldn’t have gotten past me to come back here. I would have seen her!”

Ellinghusen cleared his throat. “My dear, we really must be going.”

“Oh. Of course.” But Tara gave one last antagonistic look at the dog. It still boggled her mind how the animal had turned up again, like a bad penny. She started out of the room after the lawyer.

“Not so fast,” Fox drawled.

Tara hesitated and glanced back at him. His eyes had taken on that deep, devil’s blue. “You said we were done.”

“No. You said we were done.”

“I don’t remember it that way.”

He looked at Ellinghusen. “I’ll give her a ride home. You can go.”

“Like hell he can! Don’t you dare move,” she warned the lawyer.

“Chicken,” Fox murmured.

“What?” Tara could scarcely believe her ears.

His voice lowered another notch, closing Ellinghusen out of the conversation. “Cluck, cluck, cluck.”

“If you’ve got something to say, just say it!”

“Okay. You’re afraid to be alone with me without your watchdog.”

Tara choked. “I am not!”

“And your meek acceptance of a curse on your head is awfully banal as well. In fact, it’s beneath you.”

“Banal?” She was dumbfounded. “Beneath me?”

“Not your style at all.”

“You have no idea what my style is!”

“Actually,” Ellinghusen said, “I really do have to be getting back to the office. I would strongly advise that you come with me, Tara.”

Fox wrote quickly on the notepad he’d been carrying around with him. Tara watched him tear the top page off and hand it to the attorney. “What’s that?” she asked suspiciously.

Ellinghusen took it and lifted a brow. “This will make the matter interesting to prosecute, assuming you ever prosecute.”

“Give it to me.” Tara snatched the page from the lawyer’s hand and read aloud. “In my most humble opinion, Tara Cole did not kill Stephen Carmen. Signed, C. Fox Whittington.” She looked up at him again.

He didn’t really think she’d killed anyone.

She did not want it to matter to her. “What’s the C stand for?” she asked before her heart had a chance to roll over.

That discomfitted look passed over his features again. “Charles.”

“That’s banal. And you’re lying.”

He looked at Ellinghusen. “As long as you have that piece of paper, you can throw a major monkey wrench into any trial. So relax and go back to your office. She’s no longer a suspect. I’ll write that down, too, if you like.”

“It’s meaningless,” Ellinghusen said.

“Of course it is. Except in the hands of a good lawyer.”

“It’s good enough for me. You can go,” Tara said to the lawyer. She was damned if she was going to let Whittington call her a chicken.

Chicken or not, it still felt very, very important that she hold her own against this man. If he thought that her reluctance to be in his company was purely based on the investigation then that was all for the better. She could never let him realize just how much his slow grins and steady eyes were starting to rock her. Ellinghusen left and she faced Fox, tilting her chin up a notch.

“Okay, Blue Eyes, if it’s that important to you, you can give me a ride home.”

Fox frowned. “I don’t know. Put that way…it’s not flattering.”

Tara startled herself with a quick peal of laughter. Then he came to stand near the desk closest to her. She had to pivot to keep her eyes on him.

He leaned his hands on the metal. “You want your Rose back, right?”

“Yes.” She hated the bald longing in her tone, but she couldn’t mask it.

“I want Stephen’s killer.”

“It’s not me.”

“I know that. I just gave your lawyer a piece of paper that more or less ties me to the opinion.”

“Why? Why would you do that?” He wouldn’t go out on a limb like that just to keep her around and provoke her for a few more minutes. Would he?

Fox shrugged. “Because your stepbrother was killed prior to five-thirty.”

The hurt poured through her like cold rain. He didn’t think she was innocent because he’d believed her. He accepted it because of forensic evidence.

It shouldn’t matter, she chided herself. She hardly knew him. But she did know how to deal with hurt. “Wow. Aren’t you just the investigator? I’m so impressed my knees are weak. Can I go home now?”

“In a minute. We need to settle something first.”

“We’ve settled everything.” She put her own palms on the desk and leaned toward him so they were eye to eye. It took everything she had.

“Not quite. I’m thinking now that Carmen’s killer has the Rose.”

She thought about it and her heart stuttered a bit. “You think he was still in the house when I was?”

“Yes.”

“I hid in the pantry and then he picked up the stone once I was gone?”

“If you don’t have the Rose, and if it wasn’t in the room, then that’s the only way it wants to work.”

“If you find the killer, then I get my ruby back.”

“And you get your heart’s desire. What’s your heart’s desire, Tara?”

She lost her breath for a moment at the heat in his eyes. “That has nothing to do with anything.”

“You said earlier that the ruby gives it to the woman who holds the stone.”

“Well, I make my own good fortune.” She needed to move away from the desk. His eyes held her.

“Of course,” he said quietly, “there’s also the matter of the curse on your head.”

“There’s no curse. I didn’t give the Rose away.”

“Ah, but you lost it. It flew right out of your hand. Doesn’t that scare you?”

“Cluck again and I’ll deck you.”

“Darlin’, my point is we’re on the same side.”

Why, she thought, did those words feel like a caress? Her voice went a little hoarse. “There’s nothing more I can do for you.”

“There is. I just want you available.”

Heat slid through her. “For what?”

“Questions. Answers. Information.”

“You should have taped my statement. You’ve forgotten everything already, haven’t you?”

“Work with me, Tara. I know nothing about that gem, but I know it will lead me to the murderer. I need you on this.” It was, he thought, as good a reason as any to keep her involved.

Tara almost shivered but she bore down on the reaction. She had to break this moment. “If I do all that, can I go home?”

He grinned. The look reminded her of a hot August sun settling into the secrets of the night.

“Darlin’, if you do all that, you can have anything you want.”

“Poor thing. She’s tired,” Fox said twenty minutes later, as though being chased up the corridor had worn the dog out.

Tara looked over her shoulder into the pocket of his car’s back seat. The dozing Chihuahua cracked open one eye and growled at her.

“Oh, shut up,” Tara said. “I’m bigger than you are and I know how to hold a grudge. I could decide to hurt you.”

The dog’s growl changed to an outright snarl.

Tara turned forward again, still not sure how she had ended up in Fox’s car. She agreed that cooperation was in the best interest of both of them but that didn’t deal with the fact that personally, on an inner level, Fox Whittington still made her…feel.

She’d told him the truth to make him go away. Now she was in his Mustang.

“That dog seems to understand English,” he said.

“Sure.” She was grateful for what felt like a safe topic. “And I speak Swahili. By the way, it is the same dog.”

“I doubt it. Let’s look at this analytically. What are the odds?”

“About seventy million to one, just like that big interstate lottery. But someone always wins it eventually.”

He chuckled. It made her own mouth want to curl into a smile. “So let’s say that I accept the fact that she was in Stephen Carmen’s library with you,” he continued. “Why? What was she doing there?”

“At first I thought Stephen had gotten her to guard the Rose.”

They both looked at the little dog in the back seat at the same time. “Nah,” they said simultaneously.

“Well, she got out of the house in all that commotion and went wandering off,” Tara decided. “That we know. The front door was wide open, remember?”

“But you’re talking Chestnut Hill to center city. That’s a long stroll.”

“It happens all the time. Dogs can go great distances when they’ve a mind to.”

In the back seat, the Chihuahua that Rafe Montiel had called Belle gave a high-pitched bark of agreement.

“That,” Fox said, “is definitely weird. She…responds.”

“Hey, you’re the one taking her home.”

“If I drop her off at the pound, you know what will happen to her.” He dragged a finger across his throat. “Sayonara, Fido.”

She would not laugh again. Tara laughed. “There are dog owners all over America who started out just that way.”

“Not me. I happen to know a lot of people through my work. I’ll find a good home for her, but it’s not going to be mine.”

“Is this some kind of Southern commandment? Thou shall not own a dog?”

“How do you know I’m from the south?”

“Oh, please.” She laughed again, then mimicked him. “Excuse me, ma’am.”

“I do not have an accent.”

“You have an accent.”

“I’ve lived in Philadelphia for nearly eighteen years.”

“Well, your heart is deep in the heart of Dixie.”

Fox grinned. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d enjoyed a conversation with a woman this much. For everything he said, she found a way to come right back at him.

Then he ruined it. “You were born and raised in Philly,” he recalled aloud.

Her voice stiffened. “I never told you that.”

Fox waited a beat, thinking it through. Honesty was always the best policy, at least to hear his mother tell it. “It’s the twenty-first century, darlin’. Every major police department has a good profiler on hand.”

“You put a profiler on me?” It violated her. It terrified her. “To do what? Explain what I think, what I want, what I feel?”

“That’s a layman’s misconception.”

“Then what does a profiler do?”

“Well, that. But they also put together the pieces of your life.”

She began shaking. “How dare you?”

“You were a suspect!”

“Right. We went all through that. You thought I killed Stephen.”

“I wanted to learn as much about you as I could so I could determine whether or not you killed Stephen!” He was angry. “You sneaked out of his house! How the hell much more incriminating do you want to make it?”

“You just swore. You hardly ever swear.”

He threw a sideways look at her. She had a really fine throat, he thought, long and elegant, but he was starting to have quite a few fantasies about choking her. “I swore because you irritate me,” he said. “You just don’t see sense.” But that, he realized, wasn’t entirely true.

A week ago, he’d taken her for cold, calculating and cunning—a woman who would only see sense at the cost of any gentler emotion. Then he’d watched her eyes turn vulnerable while she’d picked anchovies off her salad. She’d given three thousand dollars’ worth of priceless toys to children she would never meet. She’d said things like she was the moon and the stars and the earth.

He’d started discovering her layers. And he wanted to keep peeling them away. He wanted to get to the bottom of her, to find the truth at her soul.

“What did you find out about me?” she asked, pulling his train of thought back.

Fox kept his voice neutral. “When your mother died, she probably hadn’t seen your real father since the day you were conceived.”

“Wrong, Sherlock.” Her voice was sharp as a blade. “I last saw my father when I was three.”

He thought about that. He was definitely catching on to her inferences. “You saw him. But did your mother?”

She shot him a look that was full of dark, angry fire. “He caught up with me at the playground with my nanny. It was the first and last time I remember seeing him.”

But she did remember, he thought, from an age when most memories were lost, or murky at best. The man’s visit had made an impact on her. “Scott Carmen never adopted you, never stepped in to fill the void.”

“I can’t imagine why.”

That attitude he thought he understood. “He never treated you like a daughter.”

“Au contraire, Mr. Detective. He treated me precisely the way he treated his own son, which is to say that we were Mom’s responsibility and he had nothing to do with us. I’m sure there were times when he couldn’t even remember where Stephen came from, much less a scrawny little kid who came part and parcel with his bride.”

There was a lot of bitterness in her tone. Fox wondered if she realized it. “You grew up wealthy.”

“Scott and my mother were wealthy. I enjoyed the trickle-down effect. They sent me to college and I made my own silver spoon with Concepts, my marketing firm.”

“You had an inheritance.”

She paused a beat. “Not the single piece of it I wanted.”

He wasn’t sure how to respond to that, then it didn’t matter. He turned onto Poplar Drive to find blue and red lights rolling rhythmically over the front of her high-rise. P.P.D. patrol cars clogged the street. There was little doubt in Fox’s mind that it all had something to do with the woman by his side.

“Stay here.” He shot the Shelby into a no-parking space, hitting the brakes hard, and Tara leapt out of the Mustang. “Damn it! Wait a minute!” But she was already well ahead of him. He knew she wouldn’t have listened anyway.

A police officer approached, trying to wave Fox out of the parking spot. Fox flashed his badge. “My case. Back off.” He ran to the entrance of the building. He found another cop in the lobby who kept pace with him. “What’s happened?”

“There was a break-and-enter at unit 737. The intruder left the door wide open. Building security noticed it and called us but whoever decided to visit seems to be long gone.”

Fox caught up with Tara at the elevator and the officer fell behind. She was stabbing her finger on the button. The doors slid shut as Fox stepped inside and the car moved upward with a small jolt.

“It’s my place,” she whispered. “Isn’t it? The trouble is at my apartment.”

“Yes.” When a sound of pure distress caught in her throat, he added, “It’s okay. I’ll take care of it. Calm down.”

She rounded on him. “I am not some shrinking, Southern, hothouse flower! Where did you get the idea that I need you to take care of me?”

Because Adelia always had. And because somehow, the lines between them were blurring. Because it was his nature to protect. All of it made his heart step up its pace and it wasn’t a comfortable feeling. He didn’t answer.

They got off the elevator and jogged up the hall to her apartment. The sleek, cold lines of her living room were shattered. All the leather was slashed. The glass tabletops were pulverized. Even one of the windows was broken as though a fist had punched through the pane in fury. Tara didn’t seem to care. She made a single strangled sound and glanced around once, then she tore off down the hallway.

The living room was nothing to her, Fox realized, but something important was down that hall.

He followed her and knew immediately that here was the woman she really was. He watched her sink to her knees beside the bed, cradling the remains of something that looked like it might have been Mickey Mouse. A low keening sound came from her throat but he was so taken aback by what he found in her bedroom that he couldn’t immediately think of words that would comfort her.

There were ivory-faced dolls strewn everywhere, wearing ripped and shredded satin and lace. This was her personal collection, he thought; here were the pieces she’d kept from what she bought at Toyland. There was a hope chest against one wall and a few of the dolls were heaped upon it. A lost arm lay dismembered and forgotten on the floor. Another’s head had been wrenched off.

Photographs had been snatched from the walls and flung at random. The backs were torn out of most of the frames. One picture, already cracked with age, looked worse for a heel that had ground it into the carpet. Fox recognized Letitia Cole Carmen from newspaper photographs, and Anastasia Romney from her years on the stage. There was a very old, murky photo of a woman with ink-black hair and knowing eyes that he could only imagine was Tzigane. A spiderweb crack in the glass distorted the lower half of her face, but he had a feeling that her smile was wise as well.

A string of pearls had escaped the carnage. It hung from an iron post of her headboard and that got to him most of all. The pearls weren’t artfully displayed but dangled there as though they had been in her hand recently and she had kept them close by in case she wanted to touch them again. He wondered who they had belonged to and knew it would be somebody dear.

Here was everything her profile hadn’t told him.

She looked up at him. “Find this guy, Blue Eyes.”

“My name is Fox.” He felt absurdly compelled to make her say it but she didn’t seem to hear him.

“He has the Rose,” she said, her voice cracking. “He killed Stephen. And now he broke Mickey into a million pieces. I want him.”

“So do I, Dark Eyes.”

Her eyes narrowed. “My name is Tara.”

Something told him he was going to have a hard time forgetting that, even when this mess was long figured out and over.

Chapter 7

She needed to keep busy, Tara thought.

One cushion had managed to escape total demolition and she picked it up and set it aside. She struggled to right the sofa.

“You’re going to obliterate any fingerprint evidence left on that leather,” Fox warned. But then he came to help her.

She looked at him quickly, surprised. His gaze was level on hers as though to remind her she wasn’t alone here. Tara steeled herself against a sweep of helpless yearning to believe it and pulled her eyes away. She laid the cushion on the sofa frame and sat on it. Then Rafe Montiel came into the apartment like a bull who had just seen red.

Fox started to join his partner, then his gaze was tugged back to Tara. Her shoulders were hunched, her hands pressed between her knees. Her head was bowed and her dark hair spilled froward to hide her features. No, he thought, there was nothing cold, calculating or outrageous about this woman now. He motioned at Rafe to start sifting through things without him, then he went and knelt in front of the sofa.

There were words he could have said to comfort her and he knew them all. But he found her fingers instead, prying her hand free from the vice of her knees to hold it in both of his. He didn’t know which part of this crushed her most so he waited for her to tell him.

A single tear dropped on the pale silk drawstring pants she wore. “This is my home,” she said finally.

“I know.”

Her head finally snapped up. “No. You don’t. I made it home. It was mine.”

“It’s still here. This is all fixable. This was no earthquake, no fire, no mudslide.”

She jerked her hand from his—mostly, she thought, because it felt too good there. He’d known, somehow he’d known, that words wouldn’t comfort her as much as that strong hand to hold on to. She surged to her feet, then she spun back to him because she needed him to understand. He’d once thought she was a killer so he had to know now that life and all that went into it was precious to her.

“I never had a home before. The house in Chestnut Hill—that was Stephen’s, his father’s, his family’s. I bought this with money I earned, not the inheritance.” She looked again at her wrecked and ruined living room and one hand came up to scrape her hair back from her forehead. “It was mostly empty for the better part of the first year. I didn’t want to rush out and buy furniture just to fill it. I bought one piece at a time so it would all be perfect. I put my stamp on it because no one could stop me.” Her voice lowered a notch. “I did it one piece at a time.”

Fox thought about it. “All that waiting for the incredibly homey feel of glass,” he said deliberately.

She looked at him sharply, then she gave a shaky laugh. “You’re good.”

“Thank you.”

“For a minute there, I almost felt sorry for myself.”

“Not your style.”

“I keep telling you that you don’t know what my style is.”

And she was hellbent and determined to keep it that way, he thought suddenly.

The Tara-rooms of this apartment were hidden in the back, he realized again. Her date book was filled to brimming with engagements she hadn’t once kept in all the time he’d watched her. She’d sent the toys to Father O’Neill’s church—and he would bet that they were an anonymous gift. She kept an emotional distance, one so seamless and complete that it took a man a while to realize that what he saw wasn’t necessarily what he got.

Rafe chose that moment to come back into the room. “What I want to know is who the hell has that rock?”

Tara moaned softly and sat down again hard.

That was the catch, Fox thought. Tara didn’t have it. He didn’t have it, as she had seemed to think he did. It wasn’t in Carmen’s library. And now, looking around at the destruction of her apartment, it seemed a safe guess that Carmen’s killer didn’t have it, either.

He had undoubtedly come to search for it when he didn’t get it at Stephen’s. It made such sweet, neat sense, Fox thought—sort of like the stepsister being the one to kill Carmen in the first place. And like that first scenario, it bothered him.

“Stephen’s death and—before that—your fight with him for the ruby got a great deal of press,” he said finally. “It could be that someone broke in here to steal the stone, assuming you would have it now that Carmen is gone.”

“No,” Tara said sharply. “Whoever killed Stephen wants the Rose as much as I do.” She looked around wildly at what that killer had done to her world. “He might have been there when I found the body but he didn’t pick the ruby up off the floor. He thinks I did. He can’t possibly realize I lost it again or he wouldn’t have come here.”

She shot to her feet again and began storming around the apartment, trying to set it all back to rights. Most women would have come undone at this point, Fox thought, stumbling upon a relative’s body one day then finding her own home torn apart a week later. Yes, it was his nature to shield her from the cruel realities of what had happened here, but he watched her and felt only admiration. He bent for a lamp, knowing that straightening the place was her first act of fighting back.

Rafe swore. “Have you lost your mind? The techs haven’t even been through this room yet.”

“They won’t find anything,” Tara said shortly. “Just like they didn’t find anything at Stephen’s.”

Fox stepped between them. “I’ll hang around here for a while. Why don’t you go back to headquarters and go through the statements that will be coming in?” They had officers all through the building, talking to other residents, hunting for someone who had seen or heard anything unusual.

Rafe scowled and nodded. Then they both turned sharply as a cacophony of high-pitched yapping broke out from the area of the door.

The police officer who had chastised Fox for his choice of a parking spot stepped into the apartment. He was holding Belle. And Belle, Fox thought, was one happy mutt at the moment. It took him a moment to realize—to accept—that she was apparently glad to see Raphael.

The officer put her down and she raced to his partner. Her tail was beating so fast her whole skinny body seemed to bend with the motion.

“She was upset about being left in the car,” the cop said. “Nice car. I didn’t want to see her tear up the upholstery or anything.”

“Thanks,” Fox said absently. The Chihuahua was in Rafe’s arms now. Fox got the strong feeling that it was beneath her to lick the man’s face, but the dog definitely gazed at him adoringly. A thought occurred to him. “Hey, Rafe, she needs a home. Why don’t you take her to Kate?”

“It doesn’t work that way.”

“What doesn’t?”

Rafe put the dog down and stepped into the hall. He left Fox staring after him. He was laughing again.

It was nearly ten o’clock before everyone cleared out of Tara’s apartment. Fox was more than ready to call it a night as well. He stepped into the hallway to turn the heating element to low. “Okay, that should do it.”

Tara crept up on him. “What did you just do?”

“I turned the heat down.”

“To what? Why?” She nudged him aside to look. “Are you crazy? I’ll freeze.”

It would serve her right, he thought, sort of a tit-for-tat experience for the night he’d sat on the park bench waiting for her until he’d been unable to feel his fingers or his toes. “There will be heat wherever you’re going.”

“Where am I going?”

“You know, I used to think you were eloquent.”

“I am when I’m dealing with intelligent life forms. You’ve obviously got a short circuit going on somewhere.” She tapped her temple for emphasis.

“Damn it, Tara!” How many times had he said those words today? “Just pack a bag and let’s go.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” There, she thought, the gauntlet was thrown.

She’d known all along what he was getting at. But the apartment was still habitable—after a fashion. Her bed was in pretty good shape. Someone had slashed clear through the comforter to the mattress but a new pad and fresh sheets would more or less hold things together for the time being. One of her pillows had escaped total disembowelment. The morning was going to be rough with no possibility of making coffee, but that notwithstanding…she couldn’t go.

Where would she go?

“Thanks for all your help,” she said quickly. “But I’m fine now.”

Something happened to his eyes. It was a new look, she realized. Their color went to indigo. And that felt…dangerous.

“You’re not fine,” he said.

“I’m completely, one-hundred-percent fine. Really.”

“Well, then, it’s a temporary state of affairs.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means maybe you won’t be so fine later on.”

“Hopefully I’ll be asleep ten minutes after you leave here, unless you’re planning to launch another midnight attack on my door.”

“I stop short of breaking-and-entering. Apparently Carmen’s killer hasn’t the same moral code.”

Tara fought hard against reacting to that. “We don’t know that it was Stephen’s killer who did this.”

“We don’t know that it wasn’t.”

She waved a negligent hand. “I’ll do the pots-and-pans thing.”

“The what?”

“Pots and pans on the floor inside the door.”

“What are you going to do, knock him unconscious with a skillet?”

She drew herself up, but her heart was hammering at her ribs. Not at the thought of confronting Stephen’s killer, but over this argument. She had to win this. “I’ll be in the bedroom behind a locked door. When—if—I hear the racket of anyone stepping on all that metal, I’ll call 911.”

His eyes got a little wild. “And by the time anyone gets up here, you’ll be dead. It will take ten minutes for anyone to get to the seventh floor to help you!”

“Honestly, you’re being paranoid.”

“I’m a cop, damn it! I know how these things work! Somebody wants you!”

Something started to shake deep inside her. “Not me. The ruby.”

“He thinks you have it!”

He looked as shocked as she felt at the way he’d raised his voice. “Quiet down before you wake up everybody on the entire floor.”

He set his jaw and his eyes glinted. “Been there, done that.”

Tara bit her lip. He wasn’t going to leave. That was bad, she thought. It was very bad. But having him drag her out of here was even worse. She had to take the upper hand and swing with it. She left him and went to her bedroom.

“Where are you going?” he demanded from behind her.

“I’m getting you a blanket if I can find a whole one left.”

“I have a whole closet full of perfectly decent linens at home.”

“Linens,” she said musically, matching his accent. “You know, I just love that…that Confederate twang of yours.”

“Don’t change the subject.”

“I haven’t. I’m not going anywhere,” she said again. “So if you’re that het up about leaving me unprotected, you’ll just have to sleep on the sofa and watch over the situation yourself.”

“Darlin’, you don’t have a sofa anymore.”

Something inside her tried to quake a little again at the truth of that. But Tara was winning and she knew it. She sneaked a glance in his direction.

He was looking back at the living room, frowning as though he was judging the possibilities for a decent bed. The dog was at his feet, watching them both, wagging her tail. What did she have to be happy about?

“Unless you’re Clark Kent, I seriously doubt if this is going to be resolved in a single night.” Tara came back to the living room and dropped the blanket she’d found on the one-cushioned sofa. “And I’m not moving out indefinitely. He’s not going to run me out of here, Fox. End of story. Good night.”

“Wait a minute! We’re not finished with this!”

She turned her back on him. A moment later, her bedroom door smacked shut.

Now what the hell had just happened here? Fox wondered dazedly. How had she won this? She hadn’t, he decided. She only thought she had.

Fox went to her telephone, on the carpet where that little glass table had been the night he’d taken her date book. He crouched and brushed shattered glass away to pick up the receiver. He’d replace the surveillance on her building, he decided, then he could go home and get a decent night’s sleep. He could put a man on her door right outside the hall and it wouldn’t be likely that anyone would get in here.

But that was a lot of manpower. Any time now Plattsmier was going to start complaining about the overtime Fox was piling up on this investigation.

He replaced the receiver. He stood again and rubbed the bridge of his nose. When he opened his eyes again, the dog was at his feet, staring at him.

“Okay. You talked to Rafe. Talk to me. What do I do now?” He was losing his mind.

The dog trotted back to the sofa in response. She snagged the blanket in her teeth and tugged it onto the floor.

“That’s uncanny,” Fox muttered. Then, as he watched, the dog moved into the kitchen. She sat in the middle of the floor and began barking. When he joined her, she pawed at the refrigerator door.

Fox opened it. The intruder hadn’t bothered to ransack this, probably because there wasn’t much in it. What did the woman eat, anyway? She probably ordered out a lot. Classy, cold and cosmopolitan, he thought again.

Except when she fell apart.

He picked up a small plastic package. “Tofu?” he asked the dog.

Belle groaned and lay down on the kitchen floor.

“Orange juice then.”

Belle growled.

“Celery? Carrots? Yogurt? Hey, there’s half a bottle of wine here. If I know this lady at all, it’s good stuff. Want to share?”

There was no response this time. When he looked again, the dog had left in disgust.

Fox carried the wine back to the living room. He upended it and drank straight from the bottle. It was crass, but he was in that kind of mood. He sat down with his back against the living room wall and picked up the phone one more time. He called Raphael, but Kate answered the phone.

“’Lo,” she said in a sleepy voice.

Fox smiled instinctively. He’d liked Rafe’s wife from the first. This was a woman who knew the value of etiquette and she made a very, very good lemon meringue pie as well. “It’s Fox,” he said. “Sorry to wake you.”

“You didn’t. Not really.” He heard the smile in her voice.

“I’m still sorry. Listen, my cell phone is in my car and I don’t want to go downstairs to get it. Rafe won’t be able to reach me if he rings it so—” He broke off as he heard his partner’s voice in the background.

“He’s at Tara Cole’s apartment,” Kate told her husband, her voice distant as though she was speaking over her shoulder.

“Now how did you know that?” Fox demanded.

“Raphael said Belle was back.”

As though one had anything to do with the other, Fox thought. He frowned.

“By the way,” Kate said thoughtfully, “I’ve been meaning to ask you. What does the C in your name stand for? I don’t think you ever told us.”

What was this sudden interest in his name all of a sudden? “Cornelius!” he shouted, then he looked down the hallway quickly, wondering if he had woken Tara.

There was a beat of silence. “Really?” Kate asked.

“No. Of course not. I was trying to get you off the subject.”

“It wouldn’t be…like, the name of an archangel by any chance, would it?”

“A what?”

“An archangel. Belle has this thing about…well, men who are named after angels. It’s a long story.”

This conversation was becoming bizarre. “This pregnancy is affecting your mind, Kate. Kate?” There was silence. He was pretty sure she’d fallen back to sleep.

Fox hung up. He began gathering what cushions he could find in the living room, whole and torn, then he kicked debris away to pile them in the center of the floor. He laid down among them with the blanket over him. Somewhere in the darkness, he heard the dog grumbling in her sleep before she began to snore.

The whole damned world had gone mad, he thought.

Chapter 8

Normally, Tara had no problem falling asleep. Even the night Fox had banged on her door loud enough to wake the dead, as angry as she’d been, she’d dozed right off again once he was gone. Tonight, however, she listened to the gentle murmur of his voice in her living room and she tossed—again—to her other side.

Who was he talking to out there? A sudden, surprising thought made her sit up and rub her eyes. She really knew nothing about him, Tara realized. She didn’t know what kind of world he left behind in order to sit in the park beneath her window at night or to snatch her lunch away from unsuspecting delivery boys. Maybe he was out there talking to his lover. Or maybe, she thought, it was even his wife.

Tara’s belly did a slow, uncomfortable roll.

Of course there was a woman in his life, she thought. He was incredibly attractive. Irritating and doggedly persistent, perhaps, but attractive. Men who looked like he did had women falling at their feet. It was one of the truths of the universe. She’d just assumed he was unattached because he was always there. And because of the intent and thoughtful way he followed her with those blue eyes.

Tara threw her legs over the side of the bed and stood, suddenly irritated. Her hands fisted. She had a right to get some sleep, didn’t she? She went to the door to yell out to him to knock it off with the sweet-nothings. Then she heard him shout.

She grinned. Trouble in paradise, she thought, not sure why that pleased her so. Then she frowned. It sounded like he said…Cornelius.

Cornelius? He was talking to a man like that?

Tara turned and made her way back to bed a little unsteadily. She crawled in and tugged the pillow over her head so she wouldn’t have to listen.

It was the second good night’s sleep she’d cost him, Fox thought, turning onto his back at dawn. When he did, he rolled clear off the pile of cushions and onto the hard floor, cracking his elbow against the leaning brass hulk of the topless coffee table. He swore and sat up.

His foul mood was even further enhanced when he saw the dog. She’d taken off with the blanket Tara had given him. She’d wadded it up in the corner and now she was asleep on top of it.

Fox got to his feet, stiff and cold. He stalked over to the mutt. “We need to set some ground rules here. I’m the human. You’re the animal. Don’t overstep your bounds.”

He nudged her with his toe. She didn’t rouse. He caught one edge of the sheet and pulled it hard. The little dog went airborne, doing a somersault before she landed with an indignant yelp.

“Were you just talking to the dog?” Tara asked.

Fox turned fast at the sound of her voice. She was standing in the hallway wearing that Eagles sweatshirt again, and this time he wasn’t preoccupied with anger or irritation. Something hot slid through him at the sight of her. She held her hair back with one hand and stood with her hip cocked, one foot on top of the other. And she had miles of legs.

“You were,” she said. “You were talking to the dog.”

“No, I wasn’t.”

“Who’s Cornelius?”

“Who?”

“Cornelius.”

“I don’t—” Then he remembered his conversation with Kate last night and the way he had shouted. No way was he getting involved in another discussion about his name. “He’s my brother.”

“Oh.” He was lying, Tara thought. All the good ones, she thought dismally. She went into the kitchen and reached for the coffee carafe before she realized it didn’t exist anymore. “Damn it.”

“Hey, you could have been anywhere else this morning,” Fox said darkly, joining her. “Waking up here was purely your choice.”

“If that’s your way of saying you told me so, stuff it.” Tara turned and crossed her arms over her chest. “You’re dressed,” she noted.

His eyes thinned warily. “All the more appropriate for sleeping on the floor.”

“There’s a croissant shop one block east, over on Twenty-ninth. Remember? You stopped there and bought some last week while you were stalking me.”

“I was surveilling you.”

She cocked her head to the side. “A rose by any other name…”

“And this has what to do with my attire?”

Tara grinned. She really did like that slow, proper, Southern slide he gave to a conversation. Linens. Attire. “Well,” she murmured, “they’d have coffee.”

“Personally, I can live without it. I’ve never been a caffeine addict.”

“They have breakfast there, too.”

“I’ll grab something to eat at home before I show up at headquarters.” He wasn’t sure why he was being contrary about this, except for the fact that somehow or other he’d ended up sleeping on her floor last night and he figured that the experience ought to have taught him to be a little more emphatic where she was concerned. Then she looked at the door and sighed.

“What?” he asked warily.

“Last night you didn’t want me to stay here by myself.”

“I’ll leave the dog with you for protection.”

“Oh, sure. All five pounds of her. That’ll work.”

A squeaky, angry bark sounded from the living room. They both studiously ignored its timing.

Unfortunately, she was absolutely right about his plans for the day, Fox thought. He couldn’t leave her here alone. “Get dressed. You can come with me.”

“I don’t think so.”

He felt the quick little thump of a potential headache behind his eyes. “Why not?”

“I have a business to run.” At his blank look, she added, “You know, clients? Employees? That sort of thing. Although I think I’ll work from home today. But either way, I can’t trail around after you.”

“Someone is after you!”

“We’ve hardly ascertained that.” Tara grinned. Ascertained. That was a good one, she decided. It was right up there with attire and linens. And she was winning—again. She could tell because his eyes were getting a little wild. She moved past him in the doorway and headed for the living room.

That was her mistake.

She had the sleeves pushed up on her sweatshirt and his were rolled up as well. Skin touched skin as she passed him and they brushed together as softly and quickly as a breath. Gooseflesh skittered up her arm.

“I’ll put an officer outside the hall. I’ll explain the OT somehow.”

“What?” Tara asked vacantly, looking back at him. Then his words registered and she rallied, not sure why she felt so let down that he was no longer going to be watching over her himself. “Will this police officer bring coffee?”

“If I tell him to.”

“Tell him to.”

“Ask me nicely.”

She started to laugh but the sound caught in her throat. Her gaze fell to his mouth. She had a sudden, heated image of persuading him to see things her way. He was grinning now and she thought of running her tongue over his bottom lip and stealing that smile away until his mouth molded over hers.

The fantasy came out of nowhere. It robbed her air and set her pulse to pounding. What was he doing to her?

Fox watched the change come over her face. She started to smile before something happened to her eyes. They narrowed intently. Her breath quickened then caught. It was almost an…invitation, he thought as his own heart punched and things gathered inside him.

Then she took a quick step back. The moment was broken.

Fox ran a hand over his unshaved jaw. “That’s it then,” he said for lack of any other words. Damn it, he knew an invitation when he saw one.

“What’s it?” Tara felt dazed although nothing had actually happened.

“I’ll get a cop over here, then you can go your way and I’ll go mine.”

Tara braced herself against another quick, shifting sensation of disappointment. “And he’ll bring coffee,” she reminded him.

“Sure.”

“Then your plan has my wholehearted support.”

“Hallelujah. Mark this day on the calendar.”

She lifted a haughty brow at him and spun on her heel. He watched her move away. When she disappeared into the living room, he went quickly to stand in the kitchen door to keep her in sight. She headed down the hall toward her bedroom with an easy sway to her hips and that black hair tumbling down her back.

Fox let out a pent-up breath. What had that been? By any name, he thought, it changed things.

And he liked it.

He left twenty minutes later. Tara was still in the bathroom in her robe, a towel wrapped around her wet hair. She heard him shout from the hallway.

“I’m leaving!”

“Okay!”

She waited a heartbeat. He said nothing more. Sprinting across her bedroom to the door, she paused to listen. She heard the front door open and close.

She left her bedroom and trotted to the living room window, dodging the debris. She looked down in time to see him rip a parking ticket from beneath the windshield wiper of his Mustang. A moment later, he was gone.

Tara went to the telephone, sitting on the floor to use it. She called her office. The phone rang and rang before she realized it was probably no later than seven-thirty. All her clocks were ruined and she couldn’t find her watch so she couldn’t be sure.

She disconnected and called Debbie at home. “Hi. It’s Tara. I’ve been thinking about what you guys said. I do need to take some time off.” She didn’t mention the latest wrinkle, what had happened yesterday.

There was a heartfelt sigh from her secretary. “That’s good. How long do you think you’ll be out?”

Tara looked around at her devastated apartment. “I don’t know.” It would probably take her a day to do what she had to do next, then she would have to tackle this mess. She drummed her fingers on her thigh. Where was that cop with her coffee?

She hung up and went to the door and peered out. Mr. Raincoat had finally arrived. This time he was standing right outside her door like a shaggy sentinel.

“Good morning,” he said pleasantly.

“Same to you. Did you bring coffee?”

He frowned. “Was I supposed to?”

She was never going to speak to Fox Whittington again. Tara closed the door without answering.

She went to her room and changed into jeans and a sweatshirt, then she crossed the hall to the extra bedroom she had turned into a home office. It was in rough shape. Her computer monitor had hit the floor with enough force to shatter the glass and spill most of its innards onto the carpet. Her hard drive was beyond resurrection. But her desk was still there and the telephone was in working order. She stepped across the threshold then she stopped dead in her tracks.

“What are you doing here?”

The dog was sitting on her chair, her tongue lolling as though she was grinning.

“He left you here? I don’t want you!”

Belle’s little black eyes narrowed.

“Okay. But…scoot. Shoo!” She waved her hand at the animal. “Go sit somewhere else. I’ve got work to do.”

The dog jumped down from the chair and left the room. She actually stalked, Tara thought, though she knew that was impossible. Tara frowned after her, then she shrugged and sat in the chair the dog had vacated. She pulled the telephone toward her and found the Yellow Pages on the floor beneath one of her upended drawers.

She forgot about the dog for three solid hours until she heard a horrible clanging sound in her kitchen. It was followed by a great deal of barking and growling.

Fox was haunted by her scent through most of the morning. He told himself he was just trying to figure it out. It wasn’t perfume, not exactly; it was nothing that strong. Maybe it was her shampoo. He’d noticed it most distinctly when she’d moved close to him in the kitchen this morning, but he remembered it from when he had tackled her in Carmen’s winter-dead garden as well. It was almost spicy, but more floral than that. There was a heat to it that teased his senses. And it was elusive. Sometimes he caught it and sometimes he didn’t.

Like the woman herself, he thought. Sometimes he was on top of things with her. Most times he wasn’t.

He swallowed a mouthful of hot coffee at his desk in the R-H unit then he winced. He’d forgotten to send some to her with Phil Currey.

Picking up his phone, he tapped in the extension for the dispatcher on duty. Sherrie Collins was an overweight blonde whose hair had been bleached one time too many. But she had a heart of gold.

“Hi, gorgeous,” she greeted him in a robust voice.

“Do me a favor? Raise Currey and get him to run over to a croissant shop on Twenty-ninth. He’s at Tara Cole’s apartment. Ask him to grab some coffee for her.”

“Lucky lady,” Sherrie sighed.

“I’m not sure she thinks so.” Fox looked at his watch. It was nearly eleven o’clock. Currey would be due for lunch soon. He could kill two birds with one stone. “Send Migliaccio over to replace him for an hour.”

“I’ll take care of it. Just plain coffee. No cappuccino? A latte, maybe?”

He’d thought about it. “Better make it one of each.” Unless he missed his guess, she’d be more than a little irritated with him by now.

He hung up as Rafe rolled in and glanced pointedly at his watch again.

“Hey, you’re Mr. Font-Of-Information-About-Pregnancies,” Rafe complained. “Take a shot at why I overslept.”

“Kate was up and down sixteen times during the night.”

“Not counting the time you woke her. She says she can’t get comfortable.”

“This is nature’s way of sharing the burden,” Fox explained. “If she can’t sleep, you don’t get to, either. Lucky for you I’m so understanding.” Fox pulled the Carmen paperwork from his file drawer and dropped it on his desk. “Given that you’re still probably more well-rested than I am, you can be in charge of thinking today.”

Rafe got his own cup of coffee from an ancient machine against one wall. He took the chair at the desk opposite Fox’s. “What’s come in?”

“Nothing.” And that ticked him off. “All the reports on the Carmen scene are in now. There were no unmatchable prints in his home except those on the telephone and we know those are Tara’s.”

“Tara’s? We’ve gone to a first name basis?” Rafe grinned. “By the way, where’s the dog?”

“I left her with our witness.”

“Ah. That could be trouble.”

Fox concurred with him on that one. He’d been expecting a phone call about it all morning. The fact that he hadn’t bore out his guess that she probably wasn’t speaking to him because of the coffee. “Can we get back to business? We got virtually nothing from the scene last night except that slew of identicals and, of course, they match the ones on Carmen’s phone. They’re hers.”

“What about hairs, fibers?”

“Nothing human jumps out at either scene, but a few thousand dog hairs were lifted from Carmen’s trousers.”

Rafe laughed. “So you believe Tara now.”

“I always believed her.” Fox frowned at the sudden anger in his own voice. Rarely did he and his partner snarl at each other but he felt as though Rafe had just stepped on tender ground. “My point being that Carmen had to have rolled when he hit the floor. The hairs would have been on the carpet, right?”

“Unless he was cuddling the dog.”

“Against his legs?”

Rafe nodded, giving him the point.

“That’s the only way to account for the fact that they were both on the front of his pants and the back,” Fox continued. “So the blow to his head killed him and whoever did it packed a punch, enough to turn him right over when he hit the floor. Carmen wasn’t a small man so that, too, more or less rules out a woman. No one was seen entering or leaving the estate that night. No one heard sounds of an altercation.”

“Same thing for Tara’s building yesterday,” Raphael supplied.

“The homes in Carmen’s neighborhood are separated by small countries and the walls in Tara’s building are probably soundproof.”

“Still. Does this strike you as being especially clean?” Rafe asked.

“It does.”

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Premeditation.”

“Someone cleaned up after themselves real well. At least, neither of these things seem to be sudden acts of rage.”

Fox shook his head. “So all we’ve got to go on is our common sense. I don’t see us getting a lot of physical evidence if we don’t have it by now.”

“Which brings us back to the same point,” Rafe said, rising for more coffee. “Who has the rock?”

“Who has the rock?” Fox repeated.

“Therein lies our answer.”

“Yes,” Fox agreed. And something was starting to tell him that it was going to be a humdinger.

The clanging sound scared Tara, coming as suddenly as it did. But she was in deep concentration and it took her a moment to identify where it was coming from and to catch her equilibrium. She paused to rub her eyes. She’d made twenty-three telephone calls and she’d learned exactly nothing. She felt worn out by frustration and disappointment and she had a headache besides.

Then her heart hurtled as the sounds got even louder. What in the world? She spun for her office door and ran up the hallway. She skidded to a stop when she reached the kitchen.

“What are you doing?” she shouted. “Stop that right now!”

Belle paused obligingly to train her beady black gaze on Tara but she kept her jaws clamped around her fur coat. The metal door to the trash chute was open. Half of the coat was in there. Belle seemed seriously determined to annihilate the other half.

Tara advanced on her. “Give me that.” She reached for the coat and the dog snapped at her hand. “I don’t believe this! Give me my coat!”

Belle growled. Tara went for the broom.

She wielded it, swinging it back and forth until the dog let the coat go and raced out of the kitchen. “It’s faux!” Tara shouted. “What kind of doggy instincts do you have anyway, you stupid mutt? You can’t even tell the difference between real fox and a synthetic!”

The dog barked back at her angrily from the other room.

“That does it.”

Tara forgot about her coat. She found the dog near the sofa and swiped her up in one hand. Then she held her up so that she faced her nose to nose. “You are one really lousy houseguest!”

Growl.

“You made me lose the Rose!”

Snarl.

“And it’s because of you that I’m stuck with Fox Whittington in my face every day and most nights!”

The dog barked.

Tara tucked her under her arm. “Just so we understand each other. Those are all the reasons I’m kicking you out.” She wrenched open the door and stalked out into the hall. The little dog struggled and kept trying to nip her. Mr. Raincoat was gone. Maybe he’d felt sorry for her and had gone for that coffee after all.

The elevator came and she stepped in. There was a tall man inside and she thought briefly that he was dressed oddly. He reminded her of a mortician with his long black trenchcoat, black trousers and a black fedora. Tara nodded him a greeting then she hit the lobby button, still trying to contain the dog.

The elevator doors slid shut and the arm that clamped suddenly around her throat was like a vise. Tara tried to scream and found that she couldn’t. Terror scattered her heartbeat and made the edges of her vision go black. She dropped the dog to reach up and claw at the man’s arm.

She was strangling. Then she felt the cold kiss of steel at her throat. The man in the strange clothing put his face close to her ear.

“Where is it?” he hissed. “What have you done with the Rose?”

Chapter 9

Hell broke loose in the form of a five-pound Chihuahua.

The frantic barks of the dog punctuated the man’s harsh, grunting breath. The dog had him by the ankle and his arm moved, relaxing a bit as he looked down in disbelief. Tara dragged in air and screamed.

Her shriek bounced off the walls and ceiling as she twisted in the man’s hold. She couldn’t feel the knife anymore. Where was it? She didn’t dare fight him without knowing that. A hot stream of helplessness poured into her blood.

“Where is it?” he asked again. He had a deep and raspy voice as though he had gargled with sand. His mouth was still close to her ear and his breath warm and fetid.

“I don’t know,” she croaked.

“I don’t have time to play games with you!”

Her mind spun frantically. “It’s in my jewelry box.” Then she realized that he already knew it wasn’t. He’d trashed her apartment yesterday looking for it.

The knife came back, nicking her neck just beneath her ear. Tara closed her eyes, waiting for it to gouge deeper. Her legs were folding. Then she heard him swear.

Her eyes flew open again. Belle was jumping at the elevator buttons as though her hind legs were made of springs. And then…the car stopped. The dog had stopped the car between floors.

She thought she was going to die. For a moment, Tara lost all sensation in her limbs. Then the doors slid open to a burgundy-carpeted corridor.

The man let her go abruptly. When his arm vanished from her throat, the sudden onslaught of air to Tara’s lungs left her weak. She coughed, her eyes tearing. The man was a blur as he darted through the open door.

The dog ran after him, yipping madly, then she dashed back into the car just before the doors floated closed again. She stood at Tara’s feet and stared at her.

“I’m fine,” she rasped. Then she coughed again and sat down hard on the car floor. The dog cocked her head and whined.

“Okay,” Tara wheezed. “You’re right. Actually, I’ve had better days.”

Fox picked up his ringing telephone. “Detective Whittington.”

“There’s trouble there! Someone accosted her in the elevator!” Sherrie’s voice was a shout this time.

Fear pooled in Fox’s gut like cold jelly. He knew—somehow he knew—that the dispatcher was talking about Tara. “Send four units.”

He shot his chair back from his desk so hard and suddenly it careened off the far wall and fell over. He had his gun out of his drawer and into his shoulder holster before he took a step.

“What the hell?” Rafe said, startled.

“He got her. There. In the building.”

They ran from the unit together. Each of his pounding footsteps drove recriminations into Fox’s brain like nails. Should have stayed with her. Should have remembered the coffee hours ago. Should have…might have…didn’t.

“Who was with her?” Rafe demanded.

“Migliaccio.” Fox let out an uncharacteristic stream of expletives. But it could be Currey’s fault, he thought. It could even be his own.

They ran across the street to the parking lot and dove into Fox’s car. He slapped the blinking light onto his dashboard with one hand while he shifted gears with the other. In minutes, they were hurtling around Logan Circle.

Even so, two of the four units beat them there. The cars were stopped nose to nose in front of 1222 Poplar again, jamming the street. This time Fox didn’t even try to park. He skidded the Mustang to a stop near the cruisers then he was out of the car and running. For once in their partnership, Rafe was well behind him.

Fox saw her as soon as he raced into the lobby. A cop was standing protectively beside her at the opened elevator door. Tara was inside, sitting on the floor with Belle on her lap. Fox jogged to her. His every instinct was to hold her. He balled his hands into fists instead, but he wasn’t sure it mattered. He’d already crossed a line anyway.

“Ah, darlin’, I’m sorry. So sorry.” He hunkered down beside her.

She turned glassy, shocked eyes his way and his heart rolled over. Yes, he was emotionally involved here. And he’d gone and done it over the absolutely wrong woman.

As though to prove it, Tara spoke. “You ought to be sorry. You never sent me that coffee.”

A bark of nervous laughter tried to scrape out of Fox’s throat. She was okay. He was afraid to consider what he might have done if she hadn’t been.

“When the elevator opened, she was sitting here on the floor,” the cop explained. “She asked the doorman to call you.”

Fox’s heart shifted a little as he considered the significance of that, that she’d reached out for him. Then he stood and gave her a hand up. “Tell me everything so I know what to do with all these cops.”

Tara took a breath and plunged in. “He was in the elevator when I got on. He had a knife. We struggled then Belle jumped up against the floor buttons. The car stopped on four and he ran out. He wasn’t overpowering me as quickly or quietly as he probably thought he would so I think he cut his losses. He’s dressed all in black—coat, gloves, shoes, hat. He was about your height but chunkier. I couldn’t see his hair.”

Fox felt another swish of admiration for her. Maybe it was instinct, maybe it was shock, but she’d capsulized the whole incident in as few sentences as possible. She’d given him and Rafe just what they needed to roll. He and his partner exchanged a glance then Rafe left to organize a search of the building.

“He was probably on his way to my apartment,” Tara realized, rubbing her throat. The nick there stung. “He wanted to know where the Rose is.”

Fox saw the red mark and helpless anger throbbed at his temples. He should have been here, he thought again. “What the hell were you doing in the elevator anyway? You said you were going to work at home! I put surveillance all over the building then you decide to go out? Why didn’t you tell someone you were leaving?”

“Well, pardon me all to hell!” Some of her color came back, but it was too hectic, too bright. “No one was in the hall! There was no one to tell!”

Phil Currey chose that moment to come back into the lobby, his hands laden with steaming Styrofoam. “What happened? Where’s Migliaccio?”

As if on cue, the other cop burst in from the stair entrance. “She’s gone! Her apartment’s empty—” Then he saw Tara and he broke off.

Fox watched them and knew what had happened with a dull, sinking sensation in his gut. The guy had moved on Tara during the changing of the guard.

“I was getting rid of the dog,” Tara explained. Belle, still in her arms, shot her ears straight up as though she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

Fox shook his head as though to clear it. “Getting rid of the dog? Where? How?”

“I hadn’t thought that part out yet. She attacked my coat.”

Something punched his chest in the area of his heart. “She saved your life. If this guy had trapped you in your apartment, he would have had a lot more time and privacy to hurt you.”

“Or kill me.” Tara felt her breath shorten all over again.

“Yes. Or that.” But Fox found he couldn’t go there, not even in theory. And he damned well wasn’t going to risk it happening again. He headed across the lobby. “We tried this your way. Now we’ll do it mine.”

Tara stared after him for a moment before she got her legs to move. She didn’t like the sound of this at all. As she passed the still-gaping Currey, she took one of the coffees from his cardboard tray. Then she stopped and sipped. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but shouldn’t you stay here and look for this guy?”

“Rafe will take care of it. And we’ve got plenty of manpower on the scene.” He didn’t wait for her but kept moving.

“Well, regardless, I’m not leaving.” Tara turned her back on him.

He caught her elbow so suddenly her heart jumped. He pulled her around again. A few minutes ago, when he’d jogged into the building, she’d actually thought she’d never been so glad to see anyone in her life. In spite of everything that had just happened to her, she’d never felt so safe in her life. But now, unless she badly missed her guess, he was going to try to make her leave her apartment again.

“I want the address of a friend or relative,” he growled. “You can give it to me on the way. Let’s go.”

“I can’t. I don’t have a coat.”

“I’ll get you one.” His jaw clapped down on his words. Fox caught Migliaccio’s attention and sent him upstairs to her apartment.

Tara felt fresh panic coming on. This was a fight she might not win.

She could go to Uncle Charlie’s but she was damned if she was going to lead trouble straight to the old man’s door. Besides, she hadn’t heard from him since the night she’d canceled their dinner. That generally meant that he had taken off again. That left…no one.

Think, she ordered herself. There had to be a way out of this. Then it hit her. “Shouldn’t I go to one of those safe houses or something?”

Fox’s eyes narrowed. “You stumbled across a body. You didn’t rat out the mob.”

“Will that make me any less dead if this guy comes after me again?”

He opened his mouth and closed it again. Damn it, she had a point. “Maybe I can find a place to tuck you. We’ll stop at headquarters and I’ll see what I can do.”

Migliaccio came back with her leather jacket. Tara wondered if this meant her faux fur was unwearable. Fox opened the lobby door and made a motion to usher her through it. It was the best she was going to do, Tara realized. She followed him outside.

“You’ve still got the dog,” he mentioned as they strode toward his car.

Tara looked down at Belle in her arms. Her little black eyes met hers and held. She had saved her life by jumping up on the elevator buttons, Tara thought, though she wasn’t going to credit her with deliberately causing mayhem to get her out of the apartment before the man was able to corner her there. But either way, she figured she might owe the beast more than a cold street corner in December.

“Maybe I’ll rethink this,” Tara muttered.

They ended up at his condo.

Fox watched Tara stride purposefully up his drive, the dog still dangling beneath her left arm. He reached into the back seat for her overnight bag. An hour on the phone with Plattsmier hadn’t convinced the captain to authorize the expense of a secure place for her to stay. She’d been adamant that she wasn’t going to put anyone else in danger by moving in with them but she had finally agreed to come here. Either she didn’t mind the idea of trouble finding him, Fox thought, or she thought he could take care of himself if it did. He finally got out of the Shelby and followed her.

Tara watched him unlock the door. There was an interior flight of stairs inside and she climbed after him to another door at the top.

“Look at the bright side of this,” she quipped. “We can use all those fine linens you were bragging about.” As soon as the words left her mouth, she felt something hot sweep her skin. “Let me rephrase that. I didn’t mean it the way it sounded.”

He glanced back at her. “More’s the pity.”

Her heart slammed. What was he saying?

Tara stared after him as he stepped into his apartment. She followed him and set the dog carefully on the floor, then she hugged herself and looked around.

It was a beautiful place, she admitted, open and airy enough to almost relax her. The main room was large and tiled—a kitchen took up one half, the living room the other. The ceiling was vaulted. The sofa, a loveseat and a big deep chair were all muted ivory. Beneath the living room furniture there was a Persian rug of a deep, warm blue.

The kitchen side of the room was made for cooking and had deep countertops. Tara spotted a coffeemaker and she sighed. Then she wondered if she ought to be thanking Mrs. Whittington or Cornelius for the prospect of caffeine in the morning.

Two photos adorned the wall to one side of the fireplace in the living room. One was of four women; the other showed an older couple. There were none of Fox with his arm draped companionably around the shoulders of a significant other. There were no his-and-his coffee mugs on the counter. For that matter, there were no his-and-hers mugs, either.

Tara left the door and wandered to the living side of the room. “Do you live alone?” she asked.

Fox took his jacket off and hung it in the closet, then he held a hand out for hers. “Yes. You can have the bedroom.”

Tara peeled out of her jacket quickly and gave it to him. “I don’t intend to put you out. I just…I don’t want to put anyone else out either.”

He frowned. “Like who?”

“Like your…Cornelius.”

“Cornelius.”

“Your brother.”

His expression cleared as though he had just remembered something. “He doesn’t live here.”

Relief stole her air. She had to remind herself to breathe. “That’s good. That’s great. It’s terrific.”

Fox looked at her oddly then he moved into the kitchen and stood against one of the counters, his arms crossed over his chest.

Tara wandered that way as well but she stopped at the kitchen table. She pulled a chair out and sat. She wished suddenly that she had just taken a hotel room for the night. It would have been the sensible thing to do. But then she’d have to tell him why she was doing it, that she really had nowhere else to go. And what would he think of that? She didn’t want to find out. Everybody had somebody.

“Would you like something to drink?” he asked, watching her.

“Sure. That would be good.” It would give her something to do with her hands.

“But not great or terrific?”

Tara flushed. “It would depend on what you’re offering.”

His eyes narrowed a little in contemplation and her heart skittered. Then he moved to his refrigerator. “Guinness?”

Tara shook her head. “No thanks.”

“Milk?”

“My bones are strong enough.”

“You do walk over people rather nicely.”

That jolted her. “I do not!”

“I’ve got four distinct, separate bruises from your living room floor and it wasn’t my idea to sleep there.”

“You didn’t have to stay,” she reminded him.

He shot her a look. “Neither did you.”

It was true enough that Tara stood and joined him at the refrigerator. She pointed to a bottle of Australian wine. “I’d like that.”

“Will it earn another good, great, terrific?”

“Pour it and we’ll find out.”

“That sounds like a challenge.”

It sounded like flirtation.

Something had definitely changed here, Tara thought, and something shivered deep inside her again. She wasn’t imagining it. There was a kind of smokey and smoldering attention in his gaze now that seemed to have little to do with people getting killed or with rubies. And it had been there more or less since she’d had that crazy fantasy about his mouth this morning, Tara realized. She’d seen the look often enough before from other men. Normally, it froze her. Usually, it terrified her. Now it had something twisting together in her belly and it wasn’t an altogether unpleasant sensation.

“Tara?”

She jumped, startled. He was holding a glass of the wine out to her. She snagged it and brought it quickly to her lips. “Thanks.”

What exactly was going on here? Fox wondered.

Part of it he could analyze. The status quo between them had shifted this morning. Now introducing his own private turf into the equation had altered things even more. It had been different at her place because she was the victim and he was the public’s protector. But bringing her here tilted everything on its axis.

What he couldn’t understand was why it made her nervous.

He watched her sip the wine, her hair framing the really spectacular angles of her face. She was a stunning woman and he found himself reluctant to consider how many men’s kitchens she’d probably sipped wine in. But she had the jitters of a sixteen-year-old visiting her first boyfriend’s bedroom. It was just one more thing about her that didn’t add up, another dichotomy that intrigued him.

He brought the conversation back to business to ease her discomfort. “So where do you think the ruby is? Any new thoughts?”

A million things happened to her face all at once—panic, pain, then finally narrow-eyed determination. “I don’t know, but I can tell you where it isn’t. I called every auction house in Philadelphia this morning and a few in New York and Washington besides. No one has seen it.”

“What did you do that for?”

“Because if I don’t have it and you don’t have it, if the killer doesn’t have it and it’s not in Stephen’s house anymore, then the only way we’re ever going to find it is if whoever has it tries to sell it.”

“If they did it through legitimate channels we would have heard by now. Someone would have reported it. That rock is too notorious.”

“I thought maybe they had and you weren’t telling me.”

The feeling in his chest was only half angry. “Of course, I’d tell you. I know how important that stone is to you,” he said shortly.

He was hurt, Tara realized, stupefied. She opened her mouth and closed it again. There was no law against doing a little digging on her own, was there? She’d always taken care of herself. She had to take care of herself. But he was a man who kept insisting on doing it for her.

Fox finally rubbed his forehead. “You know, when I combed the library the first time, I didn’t know you’d lost the Rose against the far wall.”

Tara stood straighter. “You’re thinking that maybe you did miss it?”

He hated to take the hope out of her eyes again. “It’s a longshot of such proportions, I can’t even begin to tell you.”

“But you thought of it so there must be an iota of a chance.”

“An iota,” he agreed. “No more than that.” He drained his wine and poured them both more. “But I’ll go back there in the morning and take a second look around anyway.”

Tara put her glass down on the counter. “Let’s go now.”

Two of those three words bothered him tremendously—let’s and go. He didn’t answer.

“Fox, I have to know.”

Uncertainty put a storm in her eyes. It made him think again of her strength and her toughness. If the ruby really wasn’t there, that would be bad, he realized. But it wouldn’t be as hard on her as not knowing for sure.

Still he hedged. “I don’t want to leave you here alone and Plattsmier has made it pretty clear that there’s no more overtime in the budget to bring in anyone else to watch over you.”

“Then the safest place I can be is with you.”

She’d done it again. She’d turned the whole conversation back around on him. “Not if I’m walking right back into the lion’s den.”

“If I’m not with you, you won’t know what you’re looking for.”

“Of course I’ll know. It’s a big, red piece of glass.”

There it was in her eyes again. The passion. The magic. “Not glass. When you touch it, you can feel its fire.”

“How many big red gems can there be in that house, cold, warm or otherwise?”

She drew herself up. “What happened to the questions, answers and information you wanted me available for?”

Trapped. He’d said only yesterday that that was why he wanted her to remain a part of this investigation. Fox didn’t know whether to laugh or to swear. He swallowed the last drop of blood-red wine in his glass.

“All right,” he said, moving to the coat closest again. “Let’s go see what we can find.”

Chapter 10

They reached Chestnut Hill by five-thirty but night had already fallen hard. Fox coasted the car to a stop in front of Stephen’s home and Tara suddenly had doubts about what they were doing. Yellow crime scene tape was still stretched from tree to tree across the front yard, making an obstacle course of the walkway. She felt a little queasy. She had not been here since the night Stephen had died.

Fox watched her grab the dog as she got out of the car and ducked under the tape. She looked pale, he thought, but the moon was full and round, a virginal white, and maybe it was a trick of the light.

“Are you going to be okay with this?” he asked when he joined her at the door.

Tara deliberately arched both brows. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Because—” Then his cell phone rang.

Tara gasped at the sound, nearly stumbling off the porch as she jerked back. Belle, still in her arms, gave a yelp of alarm. Fox caught her elbow.

“Sure. You’re right as rain.” He found his phone in his pocket and put it to his ear. “Hello?”

Tara watched as he listened to whoever was on the line. Her heart settled again slowly. He spoke in monosyllables and she watched his face.

The opaque light from the moon chiseled his features, making him even more starkly attractive. Then he caught her watching him and he flashed her a smile. She felt unsteady all over again.

He dropped the phone back into one pocket and found the house key in his other. “That was Rafe. They turned up empty-handed at your apartment building.”

That stilled something in her heart but Tara realized she wasn’t surprised. “He was covered in black from head to toe.”

Fox nodded and opened the door. “There were no prints in the elevator, just like there was nothing at your place last night. I thought if Belle had bitten him—”

“She did,” Tara interrupted.

“Then she got a mouthful of cloth for her effort. There was no blood trace anywhere. There’s nothing but your word that he was ever in the building.”

“Is that unusual?”

“Not when you’re dealing with a professional.”

He answered automatically. At her silence, he glanced her way and swore. The color had bleached from her skin. Guilt hit him like a sucker punch.

Last Monday she’d found her stepbrother’s body. Then he’d put her through a week of hell, tailing her. Yesterday she’d made a statement—a quelling experience for even the most jaded of witnesses or criminals. Her apartment had been torn up and someone had tried to kill her. Now he was taking her back to the scene of the crime.

He turned to the steps again.

“Where are you going?” she asked suspiciously.

“This was a bad idea.”

“It was a great idea!”

“You’d think so because it was yours. I’m leaving.”

Tara planted herself on the porch. “Fine. Go ahead. I’m going to look for the Rose.”

He stopped and eyed her. He could call her bluff, he thought, could get in the car and start the engine. He knew it would be akin to trying to move a horse by leaning into its rear. The best he could do was what he had threatened and honestly leave her here.

That wouldn’t serve his purposes at all.

He wanted her back at his place. He wanted her comfortable and safe on his sofa, sipping the rest of that wine. He wanted to take care of her, wanted to push away all the ugliness of this week instead of dragging her back into the heart of it.

Like she’d let him.

“You’re not going to move an inch, are you?” he muttered.

Tara shook her head.

It was mildly remarkable that it had taken her this long to insist upon this visit, he thought. So far she had only his word for it that the ruby was not in Carmen’s library, when she knew she’d dropped it there herself. And she’d already made it clear what she thought of his integrity. She’d spent half the day on the phone making sure he wasn’t holding anything back from her.

The way he had it figured, she was running on her last good nerve. Maybe he would get lucky and she’d pass out on him. Then he could carry her out of here bodily. It was probably the only way he was going to get her to leave until she saw for herself that there was no ruby in the house.

Fox held a hand in the direction of Carmen’s prohibitive Yankee foyer. “Ladies first.” Then she passed him and he caught that scent again, spicy but gentler than that, hot and seductive.

She was already through the inner doors and heading up the corridor by the time Fox snapped himself out of it and went after her. She had stopped suddenly in the library door.

There was no blood on the floor where Stephen had lain, Tara thought immediately. For some reason that had been her greatest fear. It could hardly be worse than taking the pulse of a dead man, yet she’d been sure that if he’d dripped any blood when he’d gotten hit in the head, if no one had bothered to clean it up—and why would they?—it would be her undoing.

The library was even darker than it had been that night because the hallway wasn’t lit. Tara put the dog down and moved along the wall, feeling for the light switch. She hit it and electricity flooded the room, then she felt her heart fall hard to her toes.

“What’s wrong?” Fox asked, reading her expression.

Tara shook her head. How could she tell him that she knew they weren’t going to find the Rose here because she couldn’t feel it? That first night, when Stephen had died, she’d been distracted. But tonight every sense, every nerve ending she possessed was painfully and exquisitely alive and if the ruby was in this room, she knew she’d sense it.

She fell to looking for it anyway. She went to the window and dragged the drapes apart, then she lifted the hems and tucked them in at the top so she could get an unobstructed view of the floor. Nothing.

She opened the window and ran her hand over the sill as a blast of cold December air tried to cut through her skin. There was no ruby. She dropped to her hands and knees and pushed her fingers under the heating vent. It wasn’t there either.

How could this be? She shot to her feet again and began moving the furniture as she ran through the events of that night again in her mind. The dog had wrapped herself around her leg. She’d swatted at her. The Rose had sailed…that way, she thought, jerking back toward the window. She went to the spot again, willing the stone to be there this time, but it wasn’t.

Stephen’s corpse had not suddenly risen to its feet, she thought giddily, staggering across the room to grab the stone in a cold hand! That was too much even for a man who’d had meanness down to a science. A fractured laugh came up Tara’s throat. Then Fox was there, in front of her. She had the sudden realization that whenever she got close to the edge of falling apart over all this, he was there.

“Darlin’, it’s no good.” His voice was as soft as a wish in the night.

Tara shook off his grip when he caught her hands. “This isn’t possible. How could it just disappear?”

“It didn’t. There’s an explanation. Just give me a little more time to find it.”

She met his eyes. There was compassion there. She wasn’t prepared for the fresh onslaught of longing that hit her. She wanted to believe him, to just give the whole mess over into his hands.

Nearly all her life, only one thing had mattered. She’d always known that when she finally held the Rose, she would have her heart’s desire, just as Tzigane and Anastasia and Letitia had before her. Tara did not want to travel to distant lands. She did not want fame or notoriety. She cared little enough for wealth. All she wanted was to trust. She wanted to believe the way Fox’s eyes were asking her to believe now.

It terrified her.

“Come sit down,” he said. “You’re white as a ghost.”

“I’m fine.”

“I apologize. I keep forgetting that part.”

She wanted to slug him, but she had no strength. “Let’s go upstairs.”

He blinked in surprise. “Unless you’ve got an arm like a major league pitcher, I just don’t see how you could have thrown it there.”

“Did anyone go through Stephen’s papers? His personal effects?”

A lot of it was piled in a storeroom at headquarters, Fox thought. Digging through it would be the next step of their investigation. He hadn’t the heart to tell her so.

“Let’s go see what we can find.”

She left the library like a shot.

Fox caught up with her in Carmen’s bedroom. Already she had every one of the dresser drawers open and she was pawing through what items had been left on the closet floor. She rifled through the clothing that hung above it, frisking every suit coat, every pair of trousers. When she was finished with each item, she flung it on the bed.

“Tara.” A small noise in her throat was the only acknowledgment that she had heard him. “What exactly are you looking for?”

She shook her head fretfully. “I don’t know.”

Fox waited.

“Stephen and I hadn’t actually lived together since I was twelve. He went off to prep school that year. Fifteen years ago.”

Fox nodded, though she never looked at him to see it.

“I didn’t really know him anymore. I knew the boy.”

Then he understood. “You don’t know what made the man tick, what he might have been capable of.”

She glanced at him quickly. “Exactly. He was always evil. But evil keeps secrets and lately I just didn’t know what the secrets were anymore.”

It was compelling enough to make him move to the closet to help her.

But Carmen’s clothing didn’t tell them anything, either. Tara finally went to the bed and sat among the clothing there, looking around the room. Then she glanced down and her gaze fastened on the ivory and jade oriental rug that was laid over wall-to-wall carpet of a lighter green. And Fox saw something change in her eyes.

“What?” he asked.

“This didn’t used to be here. This was my mother’s room. It belonged to Scott and Mom. I played there at that hearth when I was little.” She got up to look at the fireplace, then she turned back to him. “There was never this extra rug in here. Stephen added it.”

“It’s probably just his own decorating touch.”

“Maybe.”

But they bent to it together. It took a joint effort to lift the bed so they could tug it free. They rolled it up against one wall and Tara thrust a hand beneath the bed.

“There’s something here,” she said. “It feels like a brass ring.”

“I would have thought he was born with it in his hand.”

He earned a fast smile from her. “Help me. I can’t quite reach it.”

Together they leaned into the heavy four-poster. It inched backward until the door under the carpet was revealed.

“Ah,” Tara said, catching her breath. “That was the other thing about Stephen. He was always so sneaky, hiding things.”

Fox nudged her aside to pull on what was indeed a brass ring. He didn’t know what he expected to find, but there were only ledgers inside.

Tara didn’t seem disappointed. She thrust both hands into the recessed safe and pulled them out. She began opening them, her eyes scanning the pages fast. “Diaries,” she said. As she finished with each, she tossed it aside.

He saw the horror settle over her face when she found what she was looking for. Fox caught her hand as she brought it up to hold the hair back from her eyes. Her fingers were like ice. He kept her hand in his own to warm it as he took the book from her lap.

This one was a legitimate ledger. The last entry had been made two years ago, so Fox wagered there were probably more recent books stashed elsewhere around the house. But at that point, the man had been nearly a million dollars in debt and Fox couldn’t really see the situation improving.

They were gambling debts, he realized from notes in the margins, and they went back a way. They were the kind a man either paid up…or he got very hurt. The kind that thrived and fed on obsession and addiction, growing a little more for every dollar that paid them down. The interest alone would have bled Carmen’s bank account dry as a bone.

He took the next book Tara pushed aside—a diary this time—and finally he got a fix on what had happened. Letitia Cole Carmen had shared this home with Stephen after Scott Carmen had died. Stephen had desperately needed more money and he had fixated on the millions that selling Letitia’s Rose would bring. He’d known no court would easily accept that Letitia would cut her daughter out of her will entirely, so he focused on the one thing of true value she could explicably leave him. He threatened to kill Tara if Letitia willed the gem to her daughter.

But something was still missing, Fox thought. Something was wrong. The Rose could only save Carmen once Letitia died. As long as she lived, her will was a moot point.

Fox read through more pages. The man’s words gave him a chill in his bones in spite of all he’d seen over the years, all he knew of human nature. But he still wasn’t prepared for the depth of the groan that came from Tara’s throat as she figured it out.

Fox looked up sharply. “Ah, darlin’.” He moved to hold her but she came to her feet.

“Don’t,” she whispered. “Damn you, don’t be kind.”

She was still holding the last book but when she spoke it dropped from her hands. Fox took it from the carpet and quickly scanned what was written there.

Letitia had died in a skiing accident. He’d known that. What he hadn’t known—and what her daughter apparently hadn’t either—was that she’d been suffering from terminal cancer at the time. There was his answer. Stephen Carmen had smelled opportunity. He’d taken vicious and cruel advantage of a dying woman.

Letitia had willed him the stone to protect her daughter’s life. Then she’d left the country, maybe thinking to somehow escape the curse for a few more weeks, days, hours…and a snowy mountain had come down on top of her.

Tara’s movement broke into Fox’s thoughts. She bolted for the door.

She had no defenses against him right now, so she had to run.

The truth about her mother brought sharp and fresh grief, but that wasn’t what caused this pistoning of her heart. It was for what she’d seen in his eyes. It was for what he made her want. She knew how it went…giving in to that insidious feeling of safety, of being protected, of believing that she would no longer be alone—only to blink and realize she’d been dreaming.

She hurried to the central staircase. Her palm, damp with panic, gripped the newel post there and slipped right off it again. But by then she was already several steps down.

“Tara! For God’s sake, wait!”

She jumped over the last tread of the stairs, then she ran for the front door. When she was finally outside she dragged in breath. It was crystalline and cold and it hurt her lungs, but it soothed the heat in her cheeks. For a moment she only stood, her hands cramped into fists.

The moon had vanished behind a cloud. The night was too dark now and her senses were skewed from everything she’d just learned. Tara headed for the street and ran into the crime scene tape. She swiped at it but it snapped free from a tree, floating in the cold breeze like a clever ghost before it settled around her.

“Tara. Wait.”

He didn’t yell this time. He didn’t have to. He was close. He jogged to her then stopped a step away. Tara spun back to face him.

“Go away.”

“No. I’m not going to do that.”

She felt her heart sink like a brick in water. He wouldn’t, she thought. “I don’t want you here.”

“You should have thought of that before you hid in the pantry that night and got me all interested in what you might do next.” Then he did the unforgivable. He held his arms out to her.

Tara trembled. She wanted to go into those arms. She wanted it with something that made her belly knot. But to do that would be a point of no return. It would be…needing him.

She took a step toward him anyway. He gathered her close, bringing her the rest of the way into his arms. So much for gentle Southern persuasion, she thought giddily. He was like time, inexorably moving on. Nothing could stop him or shunt him aside when he put his mind to something. Tara tucked her head against his shoulder.

Fox wondered if he was just supposed to stand here. If it came to that, he would. He would hold her and do it gladly, but…there was the problem of her scent. When she laid her head on his shoulder, he caught that hint of something almost-spicy and teasing again. Shampoo, he decided, definitely shampoo. His mind held on to that for a moment, then caromed to something more immediately important.

Her hips bumped against him and her right leg edged between both of his. She tilted her face up to look at him. And God save him, but he was only a man after all.

Tara saw his expression change. Her heart began moving too fast, pounding like thunder. His mouth was so close. She brushed her lips over his, a featherlight touch. She had time to breathe once, then his hands were in her hair.

He cupped her head, making her arch her neck backward. And when her lips had to part, his mouth cleaved to hers. Now, she thought, now he took. Fear kicked in her chest, frantic to be heard. But it wasn’t enough to make her stop.

His mouth sealed over hers again and again and she met it greedily. When he came up for air, it was only to trace the line of her jaw with kisses as soft as the breath of an angel. It made her want to weep. Every cell in her body leapt to life. Something unbearably sweet curled at the core of her. This, she thought, this was what she had needed all of her life.

Fox had the stunning certainty that he had waited for this moment—this, right here, right now—all his life. Heat scoured through his blood, so sudden he had no chance to brace himself against the near-pain of it. His fingers tightened in her hair. His saving grace was that she didn’t cry out but pressed closer to him—or maybe that was his damning moment. She moved her arms around his neck. And every sweep of his tongue was met by a parry of her own.

Maybe this was how it happened when it was the right woman after all. She gave back as good as she got. It didn’t surprise him, but it nearly debilitated him.

Then want became need. And need became desperation. He found her eyes and challenged them not to leave his. Don’t run from this, he willed her silently. Don’t lock me out again.

“I—” she whispered, but she never finished. The crack of gunfire broke the cold, quiet night.

Chapter 11

Tara’s breath expelled in a rush. It took her an incredible moment to realize that she hadn’t been shot, that Fox had thrown her to the ground. He fell with her, shielding her body with his own as the first cold wave of shock ebbed and left her shaking. She had kissed him and someone had shot at her. Her mind couldn’t quite grip either reality, or explain why either had happened.

His voice was warm against her cheek. “We’re fine. We can get to the car if we stay low. I’ll be right behind you.”

“Low,” she repeated dazedly.

“We’ll move on the count of three. One, two—” She began scrambling ahead fast. “Damn it, Tara!”

Fox headed after her. He kept his right hand on her hip to guide her in the darkness; his gun was gripped and ready in his left. His thoughts tumbled in his head like rolling dice. She hadn’t been hit. She wasn’t hurt, bloodied, dying. Relief seemed to keep the best of his breath from reaching his lungs. His vest. He wore no protective vest. He hadn’t been expecting trouble. Now he waited for a bullet to tear into his back as he tucked himself behind her. Coincidence? He didn’t believe in it. This guy hadn’t just gotten lucky, coming to Chestnut Hill on a chance. He’d followed them.

And most important—why hadn’t there been another shot?

“To our left, darlin’, that’s it. We’re just going to crawl around to the far side of the car.” They reached the Mustang safely. “I’m going to reach up and open the door now, but don’t get inside. The dome light is going to come on and it will put you in a spotlight. He’ll shoot your head right off.”

Something spasmed through her although she didn’t answer.

Fox reached up carefully and opened the door. The dome light came on and the passenger side window shattered in another burst of gunfire. Tara screamed then she crammed a fist to her mouth.

He stood. Tara made a strangled sound of terror and reached for his jacket to pull him back down. He got off one blind shot before he let her.

“W-What did you do that for?” She was trembling so hard now she nearly couldn’t get the words out.

“He messed up my car.”

“B-Boys and their toys.”

“It’s a rare woman who understands.”

“You wasted a b-bullet.”

“It got my point across.”

“What if we need it to d-defend ourselves? What if he pins us down and we run out of ammunition?”

Temper was bringing her back from the edge, he thought. That was good. “I’ve got more in the glove compartment. Anyway, he’s gone.”

“How can you possibly know that?”

“Hush. Quiet down in case I’m wrong.”

He paused to listen. Tara listened as well but she heard nothing. “He’s probably c-creeping up on the car right now.”

“I wonder if he has a machete clamped in his teeth.”

Her eyes went wild. “How can you joke about this?”

Because, he thought, it kept her from thinking too much about what a mess they were in. He didn’t dare let panic get its claws into her. He knew from experience that it could be more dangerous than any gunman. It would give the other guy an edge that Fox intended to keep for himself.

“He doesn’t want to hurt us,” he said finally, in an undertone. “Now ease up on the seat there and scoot over to the passenger side. Just stay down as much as possible.”

“You’re crazy!”

“No. I’m just playing the odds.”

“With my life! He shot at us!”

But he hadn’t. Fox had had a chance to assimilate it all now. “If he had wanted to shoot us, we’d be on our way to the morgue right now.”

“You can’t know that.”

“Darlin’, I know. We made a dead-on, can’t-miss target. I was loving the taste of you for a good five, six, seven minutes there.”

Everything inside her did a sweet, slow roll.

Tara began shaking harder. “What’s the point of shooting if not to hit us?” she whispered so she wouldn’t have to think about it, about the way she could still feel his mouth on hers and his hard arms around her so many minutes after he had touched her.

“To keep us out of the house.”

Tara shot to her feet. “The Rose is in there! It is in there!”

“Son of a—” Fox broke off and got both arms around her waist. He pulled her down beside him again. It occurred to him that he might have waited to advance his theory of the shooter’s intentions when they were safely in the car and away from here. Then again, she wouldn’t get in.

“I didn’t say that. He wants us to go in case it is. He doesn’t want to give us another chance to go inside and find it.”

“He’ll look when we leave!”

“Of course he will. He’ll come up empty-handed just as we did.” What would be really sweet, Fox thought, was if they could trap the guy inside. It could happen if she’d just get safely into the car so he could put his attention to calling for backup.

Tara stared at him for a long time then she pulled free of his hold. She eased her way into the front seat of the Mustang, brushing aside the fragmented glass, waiting for another shot. It occurred to her that she’d never been so terrified in her life.

Fox slid into the driver’s seat after her. There was no more gunfire. He found his keys and a moment later the engine rumbled to life. Then the sound of sudden outraged barking made Tara jump beside him.

The dog came tearing out the front door of Carmen’s home. Tara opened the passenger door a crack. The mutt wriggled through, bounced across her lap, and scooted into the back seat.

Fox finally found his cell phone and called for units to respond to shots fired at Carmen’s address. If anything came of the scene, he knew dispatch would find him and bring him back. He put the car in gear and reached out to touch her hair as he pulled away from the curb. She surprised him by leaning her cheek briefly against his hand.

He’d been right. Everything had changed between them. Not because he’d taken her into his home, but because, for a few short moments, she’d needed him.

Tara accepted the blankets he piled around her. She even let him make her a pot of tea. The first sip she’d taken had told her he’d laced it with something much stronger. She started to protest then she felt the warmth of it slide through her. She was still shivering from the ride home with the bitter December wind blasting through the Mustang’s shattered window. From that, she thought, and from the enormity of what she had let happen between them.

She had kissed him. She had done it, had started it. And then he’d been ready to take a bullet for her.

“Television?” he asked, coming back into the room from the kitchen area.

Tara pulled the blankets more tightly around her and shook her head. “You really don’t have to take care of me.”

“No offense intended, darlin’, but you seem a little incapable of doing it yourself at the moment.”

She tried to glare at him, but the look fell short.

Fox sighed and sat on the opposite end of the sofa. “It’s all going to work itself out eventually, you know, one way or the other.”

Tara seized on the subject of the ruby. It kept her mind off the…the other. “How? Even Stephen’s killer doesn’t know where the Rose is.”

“So when we find it he’ll come to us, looking for it. You’ll get your rock, and I’ll get my killer.”

“How do you propose to find something that’s disappeared into thin air?”

“Ah, but it hasn’t. It couldn’t possibly.” Fox went quiet, thinking about it. “If it was on the floor when you got there that night, then the killer obviously lost it in the struggle with Carmen. Something panicked him, made him run without it.”

“Killing a man could do that to a person.”

He glanced at her with a considering expression. “True. It’s possible that he never meant to kill Carmen, that his death was an accident while they struggled for the rock. In any event, we’ll say the killer fled the premises. He didn’t lay low while you hid so he could pick up the Rose again or he wouldn’t be looking for it now. Therefore, someone else has to have entered the house and picked up the ruby while you were in the pantry. There’s a third party involved here.”

“There was no time for that to happen.” Tara hugged herself. “I went into the pantry in the first place because the police had arrived.”

“I’ll admit it was a narrow window of opportunity.” He reached absently to curl a strand of her hair around his finger.

It was too intimate, too familiar. The first time, in the car, she’d been shell-shocked. This time, Tara quickly eased back.

He dropped his hand. “The first question is—who is this someone else?” he continued without breaking stride. “And the second is what does he plan to do with the gem now that he has it. We have to figure out where it’s likely to end up. Then we’ll look there and we’ll get it back.”

Something soft filled her chest, and it felt like hope. “You agree with me that whoever has it will try to sell it? But I called all over today and no one has heard a word of it.”

“You called legitimate establishments. I don’t think whoever has the stone is a stellar citizen, darlin’. He only has two choices here. Keep it, or unload it underground. If he does it the legal way, people are sure going to wonder where he got it.”

If he kept it for himself, Tara thought, then she would never see the Rose again. Everything inside her recoiled from such a possibility.

“For every guy who plays by the rules, there’s another bending them,” Fox said mildly. “You’ll find it in any business. If the ruby is going to be moved, that’s how it’s going to happen.” And, Fox thought, there was one man in the city who had his finger on the pulse of everything that ebbed and flowed in that world. Luckily, it was his partner. “I’ll call Rafe and ask him to see what he can find out.”

He stood idly. Tara watched him leave the room. She reached for the remote control on the coffee table and clicked the television on absently. Then she frowned and looked again in the direction he’d gone.

Down the hallway? But there was a telephone on the kitchen wall. Why would he need to leave the room to call Rafe Montiel? Unless, she thought, he was going to tell the man something he didn’t want her to hear.

She pushed the blankets away and stood. She hesitated for half a heartbeat then she moved soundlessly into the hallway. She picked up the hushed tones of his voice just before she reached his bedroom door.

A frown creased her forehead. It was the same way he had talked to Cornelius.

“…can’t do it this year. I’m tied up with something right now.” Then there was a pause. “Ah, Connie, love, you know I’d be there if I could.”

Connie? Love? Tara fought against making a sound.

“Of course, I’ll call,” he said. “I love you, too. Merry Christmas.”

Christmas.

It hit her like a physical blow. It was only two days away. With everything that had been going on, she’d forgotten that. But of course he’d want to be with the…the person on the phone.

I love you, too. Merry Christmas. She felt dizzy. Was Connie short for Cornelius?

Her legs tried to give out. It was the only reason he caught her in the hallway.

“What are you doing?” he asked, startled.

Tara dragged in breath. “Don’t you dare stay here because of me!”

He sighed. “Ah.”

“That’s it? That’s all you’re going to say? Ah?”

“What do you want me to say?”

“I want you to go to him. Her. Whoever. For Christmas. I don’t want to keep you away.” Her knees threatened to bend again. He had to go. She wasn’t sure what made her more frantic—the idea that he might stay in Philadelphia through the holiday or that his heart really did belong to someone.

He looked at her as though she had grown two heads. “Go to who?”

“Connie!”

“She’ll live without me this year. It won’t kill her.”

“She.” He’d said she. Of course, he had. Tara had never been kissed like that in her life. A man who kissed like that wouldn’t harbor tender feelings for a Cornelius.

So it was Connie he’d been talking to. Correction, she thought as something bitter lodged in her throat. It was Connie, love.

But then who the hell was Cornelius?

Fox left her and moved into the living room. “It’s always a zoo at her place,” he said over his shoulder. “She has a husband and four kids.”

Tara followed on his heels. “You have to—she has what?”

His eyes narrowed. “What are we talking about here?”

“What are you talking about?”

“My sister and whether or not I intend to fly to Savannah tomorrow to spend Christmas with her and the rest of my family.”

Disbelief beat against the inside of her temples with nasty little fists. “Connie is your sister? Like Cornelius is your brother?”

“I don’t have a brother!”

She shoved at his chest and swept past him. “Liar! Then who’s Cornelius? Tell me that!”

What was going on here? He watched her go and felt poleaxed. She landed at the coat closet and grabbed her jacket. Fox felt his blood pressure spike.

“Take that off,” he said too quietly.

“No. If I’m not in your way then there won’t be an issue of what you’ll do for Christmas. You’ll go to Connie, love where you damned well ought to be.” She struggled into her jacket.

She did have a way of spitting Connie’s name out, Fox thought. He crossed the room toward her, beginning to understand. “You’re jealous.”

Her face went as red as Santa’s suit. “Oh, get real.”

“You are. I’ll be damned.”

“Over what? It was only one kiss.”

“But it was a really, really good kiss.”

Her heart skipped a beat. “That hardly gives me any claims on you.”

“True. But the sentiment is kind of…provincial just the same.”

“I am not provincial!”

“Sweet then. In a homespun, innocent sort of way. I like it. You continue to surprise me, darlin’.”

She bore down on him, mortified, and poked him in the chest. “That kiss was a mistake.”

“Do you think so?”

“I was just…shaky. I wasn’t in my right mind.” Tara put a hand to her stomach. It was knotted and it hurt. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

“I do. Does this mean you don’t want to do it again?”

She zipped her jacket up hard in response. Her hands were shaking. Damn him—damn him—for the way he could make things melt inside her with a few words.

“Connie really is my sister,” he murmured.

“I don’t care.” She felt like a fool.

“It’s a rather long story how Cornelius got into this, but trust me, he’s really nothing to get worked up about, either. I’m not going to join anyone in Savannah for Christmas this year because they’re there and I need to be here.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Yes, I do. I’m not going to let this guy get an extra two days’ jump on me. And I’m not going to leave you alone.”

Tara closed her eyes helplessly.

Watching her, the rest of the pieces finally clicked into place. Fox thought about how she’d refused to leave her shattered apartment last night and how she’d resisted today. There was nowhere she could have gone, he realized, except maybe a hotel. He’d watched every move she’d made for a week and he’d seen it with his own eyes; he just hadn’t realized what he was seeing. She wasn’t close enough to anyone that she would call them and beg a night or two on their sofa.

If he stayed in the city during Christmas, if he kept on with this case through the holiday, he’d see that she had nowhere to spend that day, either. As long as he went to Savannah, her walls would stay in place. She could lock her doors and windows and spend the day alone and no one would be the wiser.

“What were you planning to do for the holiday?” he asked quietly, just to be sure.

Tara turned away. “I haven’t decided yet. I’ve been too busy worrying about somebody ransacking my apartment and trying to knife me before he decided to shoot me.”

“Mmm.” Fox caught her hand and turned her about again. He unzipped her jacket. She slapped at his hand. He eased it back off her shoulders and tugged a sleeve off her arm.

“What are you doing to me?” she demanded.

“You’re not going anywhere, darlin’. And neither am I.”

“I won’t let you do this.”

She could have been talking about Christmas, he thought, or the simple business of her spending the night here as they’d planned. Either way, it didn’t matter. She wasn’t going to win this one.

He caught her wrist and planted a kiss against her palm. He felt the shiver roll through her. He slid his other hand around to the small of her back and eased her body closer to his. He looked down at her, in his arms, his face close to hers. “There now. Isn’t this better than arguing about people who don’t even exist?”

“It’s not solving anything,” she whispered.

“It doesn’t have to. I just want more.” He covered her lips again and swallowed her sigh. “More of you.”

Tara had a single blinding moment to wonder how he did this to her when he was everything—gentle and caring, strong and protective—that she knew she had to resist. Then she was kissing him back.

His mouth was everywhere, hot and wet, up and down her throat, along her collarbone, the line of her jaw. His palm slid up beneath her sweatshirt, along the sensitive skin over her ribs, until she caught her breath in anticipation of where it might go next. Then he found her mouth again and his kiss was as persuasive as a prayer.

She had to stop this before it went any further. She knew that. But she couldn’t remember anymore why it was so dangerous, how it could be wrong.

He bent and slid an arm behind her knees. In the next moment, she was in his arms, then he lowered her to the sofa and covered her body with his own.

“Fox…”

He put a finger against her lips. “I’ll stop if you tell me to, so don’t say it unless you mean it.”

He empowered her with his gentleness. Tara framed his face with her hands and pulled him back to her even as she doubted her own mind.

Fox laid his palm against her chest. Her heart was racing. So was his, he knew. Because he was on a precipice, standing over something huge that could swallow him up, that could change everything he thought he knew about himself. But it seemed good and right that what had ended with a gunshot in Carmen’s yard should continue here, now, when she was safe and warm in his home. He fitted himself against her, prepared to spend a long, long time on her mouth.

This time they were interrupted by a thudding knock on his door.

He felt her go ramrod stiff beneath him. She pushed both hands against his chest, struggling to get up. Fox swallowed every curse he had ever heard.

“Easy. It’s probably just Rafe.” But he sat and let her leave him. “I did call him first.”

Tara straightened her sweatshirt and touched a trembling hand to her mouth. She tunneled her fingers into her hair. Her eyes wouldn’t meet his.

And that was when it hit him.

She was soft, vulnerable. She was everything he hadn’t thought she was, and she was exactly his type after all. But it came with a huge price, one he took no pleasure from. She was strong by nature, so something, somewhere along the line, had broken her and left her in fragile pieces.

“Who did this to you?” How could she feel such fear over something so sweet and right as that kiss?

Tara looked at him sharply.

“Who left you when you needed him most?”

Then Fox answered himself. Will Cole. Her father. It was the first and last time I saw him, she’d said. But she still remembered it after all these many years. The man had torn her heart out when he’d gone and he’d left her to the particular hell that was Stephen Carmen.

Tara opened her mouth to deny it, her eyes bright with rage. Then Rafe’s voice cut through the door.

“Come on, open up in there! I haven’t got all night.”

He’d drop it, Fox thought, for now. He stood from the sofa, then he bent and kissed her quickly as he passed her. “Tara.”

“What?” She nearly spat it.

“I’m still not going to Savannah.”

Chapter 12

Rafe picked Belle up in one hand as he strode into the apartment, then he shot Tara a glance. “I spoke to a few pertinent sources. Sorry, but your ruby isn’t being sold in Philly.”

She nodded. The tangle of emotions inside her left no room for disappointment.

Her heart was still jackrabbiting in her chest. She’d let him in. It was all her own fault. She’d opened her heart, had forgotten to keep the blinds drawn on her soul. She’d sunk into the goodness and the warmth of him—not once, but twice, like that first kiss had been a single domino setting off hundreds and thousands of other falls. Now he’d somehow gotten into her secrets. Who left you when you needed him most?

Panic rolled over her in jittery waves. She had to fix this, had to push him back where he belonged…somehow.

“I’m thinking that Liam Bradstoe might be able to help us, though,” Rafe continued. “The ruby isn’t likely to get out of town without moving under his nose. He isn’t happy about it but he’ll talk to me at nine o’clock tomorrow morning.” He handed the dog to Fox.

“It makes more sense for me to see him.” Fox took the Chihuahua. “If the chase for this stone leads us out of town, you won’t want to leave Kate right now.”

Rafe didn’t need to be persuaded. “Go for it then. Bradstoe will be at Bonnie Joe’s for breakfast. He’ll see you there.” He reached for the door. “For what it’s worth, I’ll swing through Chestnut Hill on my way home but so far the word out of there isn’t good, either.”

Fox nodded grimly. “I figured they didn’t catch the guy inside. I would have heard.”

“They did dig a .357 hollow point out of a tree.”

It was a hefty gun. “You ought to see how it took out my window.” Fox shook his head. “This guy is going to have to make a mistake sooner or later.”

Rafe nodded. “They always do.” He shut the door soundly behind him.

Tara’s gaze danced warily to Fox. She did not intend to go back to where they had been when the man had started pounding on the door. “I think I’ll take you up on that offer of the bedroom now.”

“Be my guest.”

She stood quickly and hurried out of the room. Fox watched her go, undisturbed. They both knew she was running out of places to hide.

She would be polite at all costs, Tara decided as she brushed her teeth the next morning. She felt stiff and achy from a long restless night, but the dark hours had given her room to deal with what had happened. And by dawn she’d known she could get her ground back. She had to.

She washed her face and ran down the rules she’d set. One, no touching. Two, no arguing because that always brought them nose-to-nose, which wasn’t a particularly safe state of affairs anymore. And three, there would be absolutely no discussion of anything personal.

She worked her hair into a French braid and stood back from Fox’s bathroom mirror to make sure everything was as it should be. She wore a tailored man’s shirt—loose and unbelted—and jeans and tennis shoes. Very unprovocative.

She was fine. Everything was fine. She put her hand on the doorknob and stepped into the hall again to the smell—oh, God bless him—of strong chicory coffee.

Tara followed her nose to the kitchen. He was dropping bacon into a frying pan, stepping over Belle as he worked. He looked over his shoulder at the sound of her footsteps and smiled. “’Morning, darlin’.”

Her breath caught. Her heart rolled over. “Same to you.”

He had a radio turned on somewhere, she realized. She heard the distant, tinny sounds of Christmas music. Silent night, holy night… Tara hugged herself and blocked it out. Mention clowns, she thought, and you’d end up seeing them everywhere you looked. Now that she had remembered the holiday was upon them, she knew signs of it would jump out at her all day.

Fox watched her move quickly and precisely to the table. She sat and folded her hands together neatly on top of the wood. “Did you sleep all right?” he asked.

“Very well, thanks.”

So that was the way it was going to be this morning.

It was no more or less than he had expected. Fox rubbed the back of his neck before flipping the bacon over. The problem here was not unlike getting trapped in one of those glass mazes at a carnival, he decided. You thought you knew where you were going only to find that the path you’d planned to take wasn’t there after all. You thought something solid was in front of you but you put your hand out and it sliced through air. The five minutes you were inside, lost and disoriented, had a habit of stretching out until they felt like hours. And for a long time after you were finally free of the place, your perceptions stayed off.

She’d done that to his entire world.

She’d changed his rules, he thought, something even Adelia had not done. Adelia had slid seamlessly into his life, changing nothing, barely causing a ripple. But this woman…this woman rocked his foundations. His need to comfort and protect her ran strong and steady in his blood, but if he tried to save her from the jail she’d put her heart in, he knew it would only scare her to death and make her run.

It was a dilemma, he conceded. He reached for the carafe. “Coffee?”

Her eyes lit. “Thank you.”

He poured a mug and set it on the table. “Sweet and light?”

“Strong and black.”

“Now there’s the Tara I know.”

She opened her mouth then closed it again. She wouldn’t rise to the bait. Fox stepped back to the counter. “Sunny-side up or over-easy?” he asked.

Tara looked at the carton of eggs near the skillet, pure cholesterol in a shell. “Neither. I’d like to live to see my firstborn.”

“Ah, come on,” he drawled. “Live dangerously.”

Her heart spasmed.

Living dangerously was what had brought her to this point, she thought frantically. It had made her forget caution and everything she knew to be true. Who walked away when you needed him most? Damn him, damn him! It was none of his business.

He put a plate of toast in front of her and her temper kicked. “You’re a regular Betty Crocker, aren’t you?”

“Cooking is a necessary life skill. Food can be one of life’s most decadent pleasures but eating out all the time can be financially prohibitive.”

She’d rather not discuss decadent. Tara picked up a slice. “Is it dry?”

“Saturated with butter.”

“Must be your Southern genes.” She bit anyway.

“Northerners don’t know how to eat.”

“Obviously, you’ve never been to a clambake.”

“Is that where they stick tofu in the sand?”

Tara choked on her toast. Damn it, she thought, she didn’t want this…this banter. She wanted him to be a stranger, someone whose path she just happened to cross one dark and horrible night.

He put two plates full of bacon and over-easy eggs on the table and sat down himself. The dog inched close and began circling like a shark.

“You could have scrambled them with non-stick spray and low fat,” Tara mentioned.

“That,” he said, pausing for a mouthful, “would be like kissing your sister.”

“Which you have.”

“Many times.”

She choked.

“Not in the respect you mean, though.” He grinned.

“I meant Connie, love.” She took her own quick bite. “Not that I give a damn.”

“Of course, you don’t.”

She had to take this in hand. “Fox, this can’t continue.”

“Hush. One unhealthy meal isn’t going to kill you.”

He was deliberately misunderstanding. She knew that, but she clarified the matter anyway. She motioned a finger between them, pointing at him, at herself.

He nodded. “Ah. Now I get it.”

“It’s got to stop.”

“I can’t think of one good reason why.” He stood and picked up his plate. “Eat up and we’ll go see Bradstoe.”

“Did you hear what I just said?”

“I did.”

“Well, I meant it.” Somehow she thought it might earn a bit more reaction.

“So did I.” He opened the dishwasher and dropped his plate inside. Then he came back to the table. He leaned close to her. “Relax, darlin’. Nobody’s pushing you. I’ve got all the time in the world and I’m a patient man.”

She was sinking, Tara thought, just…sinking. At her feet, the dog barked happily.

“Oh, shut up,” Tara muttered at her. “What do you know about it?” Then she figured the mutt just wanted her breakfast so she put her plate on the floor.

They dropped the Mustang at a repair shop to have the window replaced then they picked up an unmarked car at headquarters. The interior smelled like old smoke and stale onions. Tara tried not to breathe too much.

They found Liam Bradstoe in a restaurant on Filbert just as Rafe had said they would. It was a quaint place with old-fashioned multipaned windows fronting the street. A string of twinkling red Christmas lights framed them but there was thick darkness behind the glass. Tara’s best guess put the place at being closed but when Fox rapped his knuckles on the door, it opened.

The man who greeted them was obese. His eyes were flat and a shade paler than his mud-colored hair. He was dressed all in tan. His only color was in his florid cheeks.

“Good morning, Joe,” Fox said pleasantly. “We’re here to see Liam.”

The man looked past Fox at Tara, then his gaze dropped to the dog in her arms. “Hey, I’ve seen that mutt before. Your partner brought her by once.”

Tara held the dog out to him. “Would you like her? She needs a home.”

“Won’t work, darlin’,” Fox said. “Bonnie Joe is out on bail. They don’t let you keep pets where he’s going to be living three weeks from now after the trial.”

“I had no damn idea what that blonde was up to,” Bonnie Joe complained.

“Of course not,” Fox drawled. “Right now, though, I’d really like to speak to Liam on another matter.”

The man didn’t move from the door. “I thought Montiel was coming. Him, I trust. You I don’t know so much.”

“I’m much nicer.”

Tara’s gaze had been whipping back and forth between them. At Fox’s response, she rolled her eyes.

Bonnie Joe finally stepped back and waved them inside. Tara followed Fox and nearly walked into a huge, beribboned Christmas tree just inside the door. She caught her breath and looked up at the angel at the top. It seemed to gaze back at her with sad, knowing eyes.

They found Liam Bradstoe at a table in the center of the room. In contrast to Joe, he looked cadaverous. Even sitting, Tara could tell by the length of his torso and the way he bent his shoulders to eat that he was at least six and a half feet tall. Three platters were in front of him—one with fried potatoes, one with poached eggs and one with fried ham. There was a gravy boat of something that looked like hollandaise sauce. Each of the plates showed serious dents. Tara decided he must be a Southerner.

“Where’s Montiel?” Bradstoe asked around a mouthful, repeating Joe’s question.

“He sent me instead.” Fox pulled out a chair for Tara, then one for himself. She sat, resting the little dog in her lap.

“He said you’re looking for a ruby,” Liam said.

“And he said you’d be able to tell me when it started moving around.”

Tara’s gaze flicked quickly to Fox and she frowned. His drawl was gone.

“If it starts moving,” Bradstoe corrected, “I’d know. And I would be glad to tell you for a favor in exchange. But I don’t see it getting real active around these parts.”

“You know the rock I’m talking about.”

“I have my ideas. It’s not changing hands in my city.” Bradstoe took a hefty mouthful of potatoes. “Only a fool would try to fence it here. It’s been in the Inquirer damned near every week for years. You’ll probably want to go north where it might have gotten a little less press.”

“Is there anyone up north I’d particularly want to talk to?”

Bradstoe rubbed his gaunt jaw. “I’d have to think about it, if you get my drift. By the way, I got a niece going up for trial next month. Did you know that?”

Fox grinned. “No kidding. What did she do?”

“She got herself involved with some drug types.”

“What’s her name?”

“Alicia Connelly.”

“I’ll check out the charges.”

“I was hoping for a little more.”

Fox leaned forward. “This is not that big a deal, Liam. I’m not asking you to turn State’s evidence here. I just want to speculate a little bit about some people who might not be averse to playing around with a few million dollars’ worth of hot ruby. Checking out charges is all you’re going to get out of me on this one.”

“No!” Tara interrupted.

Both pairs of eyes swivelled to her. It took her a startled moment to realize she’d protested aloud.

“Don’t be difficult about this,” she said with more dignity.

“Difficult,” Fox repeated.

“Your lady has a point,” Liam mentioned.

“My lady doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

Tara leaned toward him. “He knows where the Rose is!” she hissed. “Just make a deal with him and let’s get this over with! Do you think I don’t know what’s going on here? I watch television!”

“Well, now, in all fairness, I didn’t say I know where the stone got to,” Liam interrupted. “However, if you want the gem that badly, I could use my own resources on the search. Alicia—”

“Excuse me, Liam,” Fox interrupted. “I need a moment with my friend here.”

He was on his feet and had her elbow before Tara could take another breath. She nearly dropped the dog and Belle growled a startled warning. Fox tugged on her arm and she followed him into the shadows of a dark corner of the empty restaurant.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he demanded.

“You’re swearing at me again.” She tried to ease out of his hold.

“You’re irritating me again.”

“I want my ruby back!”

“Then stay out of this!”

She’d forgotten her rules.

They were nose-to-nose again. She’d provoked him. Tara felt her legs wobble a little beneath her at the heat in his eyes. At least, she thought, he wasn’t gazing at her in that gentle, knowing way…the way he had been last night. She remembered, and her gaze fell almost helplessly to his mouth.

Fox saw her eyes go smoky. It hit him where he breathed. “Don’t do that.”

“What?” She shook her head to clear it.

“Don’t look at me like that. I might take you up on the invitation.”

Something shivered through her hard and fast. “That wasn’t an invitation.”

“Then tell me what you were thinking when your eyes did that.”

“My eyes didn’t do anything.”

“They went like this.” He let his own gaze drop to her mouth.

Tara clapped a hand to her stomach while it tried to pitch with something that felt entirely too much like excitement. “Okay. I was thinking that you’re an irritating, stubborn, frustrating pain in the—”

“But darlin’,” he interrupted, “at the moment I’m the best pain you’ve got.”

“I don’t have to like it.” Tara turned smartly and went back to the table. Fast.

After a moment, Fox followed. He spoke to Liam but his gaze stayed on her. Speculatively, she thought. She wondered what was going through his mind and gooseflesh rolled up her arms at the possibilities.

“I’ll see what I can do about cutting Alicia’s sentence some,” he said, “but that’s it. I have no patience for drug matters, you know that, and if she was involved I want her to serve time. Now where would this stone go if it was going to go anywhere?”

Bradstoe measured him with his eyes. “I only have a guess.”

“We’ll start with that.”

“Try a guy named Petro Acosta in New York. He’s got a store on the lower east side. He deals high-profile items in the back, if you get my meaning.”

Fox nodded. “You’re a scholar and a gentleman, Liam. Tell your niece to get married and settle down.”

The man sighed. “I’m trying.”

“Try harder.”

“Maybe six years instead of ten? Parole in one? She’s young enough to start over.”

Fox thought about it. “With a blood test every two weeks to make sure she’s clean. If there’s any change, she goes back in.”

Bradstoe nodded without hesitation. “Deep down, she’s a good girl.”

“And Bonnie Joe over there didn’t know Allegra Denise was running around shooting people,” Fox drawled.

Bradstoe gave a bark of laughter, remarkably robust for such a skeletal man. Joe grumbled from behind the bar.

It took Tara a moment to realize that the interview was over and that Fox wasn’t going to wait for her. He was still angry. She hurried to catch up with him at the door and they stepped out onto the street together.

“Just for the record, I wouldn’t have put up with that from Cornelius or Connie.” He unlocked the car and opened the door for her. “When we go to New York on Monday, let me do the talking. If the need to contribute becomes too much for you, just try to remember this is my job.”

Tara stopped just as she was about to get into the car. He’d said we in the same sentence as New York. That was good. It meant he wasn’t going to try to stash her somewhere and go after the ruby on his own. Unfortunately, he’d also said Monday.

“Why aren’t we going now?” she asked.

Fox recognized the look in her eyes. It was the one that would put a mule to shame. “Please get in the car.”

“After we settle this.”

“We’ll settle it on the way back to headquarters.”

“I don’t want to go to headquarters. I want to go to New York.”

He touched his finger to her lip to distract her. “We all ache occasionally for things we can’t have, darlin’.”

Her blood surged at his touch, but she was dogged. “I can have this.”

“No. You can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I seriously doubt if Petro Acosta will be amenable to talking to a detective from Philadelphia on Christmas Eve. It’s a waste of our time to make the drive today.” And none of that, he realized with his next breath, was as important as that suddenly frantic look in her eyes.

If she was in New York looking for the ruby, then it wouldn’t be Christmas, he realized. She hadn’t been able to push him out of town for the weekend so he reckoned she’d just do the next best thing. She’d make sure they stayed so busy there would be no issue of eggnog with good friends or stuffed turkey with family. She’d make sure that he still wouldn’t know that under normal circumstances, she’d be alone.

“You’d have to cancel whatever plans you have for tomorrow.” He watched her face. “You never did say what they were.”

Tara waved a quick hand. “It’s okay. I don’t mind. And you already said you weren’t going to Savannah.”

Christmas in New York, he thought. Why not? He told himself she hadn’t maneuvered him into this one. But even if she had, he realized he didn’t mind.

“Then let’s go, darlin’. We’ve got a long drive ahead of us.”

Chapter 13

For a woman who loved to pack—she’d brought at least five changes of clothing to his condo, Fox thought—Tara was in and out of the rubble of her apartment in less than half an hour. Fox made himself as comfortable as possible on the single cushion on the sofa while she went into the bathroom to hunt up unbroken toiletries from the mess on the floor.

Then she landed, breathless, at the front door. “Okay. I’m ready.”

Fox stood. “I’ll just need to call Rafe and bring him up to speed on this.”

“Why didn’t you do it while I was packing?”

“There wasn’t enough time.”

She narrowed her eyes fast. “Do it in the car then.”

“Easy, darlin’. New York’s not going anywhere and I won’t change my mind if you don’t get me on the road ten minutes ago.”

“But we don’t know how late Petro Acosta might keep his store open on Christmas Eve. We should get there as early as possible to be on the safe side.”

That was only half of it, he knew. The sooner they left Philadelphia on this little odyssey, the sooner it would be just another December day. They’d already encountered carolers downstairs in the lobby. She’d thrown a handful of change at them so abruptly and frantically one of the girls had jumped in alarm.

He let her lead the way into the hall and she stayed ahead of him to the elevator. Inside, she went stone still, just as she had on the ride up. This time he caught her hand and squeezed it.

“I hate that, you know,” she muttered.

He raised a brow. “What?”

“When you know what I’m thinking.”

He wanted to take credit for it and couldn’t. It was a no-brainer. “Twenty-four hours ago you could have been killed in here. Coming back to it would give anyone a moment’s pause.”

“Do you know I can still smell him? His breath was like rotten mushrooms. And his voice was all scratchy and raw.”

Fox nodded. The elevator dinged. Even if it weren’t the gentlemanly thing to do, he would have let her be the first one off.

She paced across the lobby ahead of him. He caught up with her in time to open the door for her, then they were back at the unmarked and heading north around the college. Fox took his cell phone out as he drove.

“Kate,” he said warmly when his partner’s wife answered his call. He felt the impact of Tara’s gaze as it riveted on him and he smiled to himself. Yes, she was definitely the jealous type.

He took the phone away from his mouth briefly and slanted a look her way. “Rafe’s wife.”

“I don’t care.” Tara shrugged. “I thought it was another nickname for Cornelius.”

Fox winced. Sooner or later, he thought, he was going to have to come clean about the C. In the meantime, he turned his attention back to Kate. “Is Rafe available?”

“He’s not home yet. He’s going over the stolen weapons list to cull out any .357s that might have left that bullet in the tree last night. He says to tell you he doesn’t hold out much hope though. Which kind of makes me wonder why he felt compelled to do it today. If he makes my Yorkshire pudding turn by being late, I’ll kill him.”

“Yorkshire pudding?” Fox said hopefully.

“Where are you?” she asked. “Why don’t you join us? Rafe said that it didn’t seem like you were going south this year, and we have plenty.”

His mouth watered. He looked at Tara. “She wants us to join them for dinner.”

Tara shook her head hard. That wild look came back into her eyes.

“Save me some,” he said into the phone again. “I’m heading for New York.”

“New York? Whatever for?”

“To talk to a man about a pretty red rock.”

There was a beat of silence from Kate. “On Christmas?”

“Not to worry. A good time will be had by all.”

“All? Oh! Tara Cole is still with you!” She sounded delighted. “How’s Belle?”

“Now what in the world does one have to do with the other?”

“You’ll figure it out eventually. Wait! I’ve got a grand idea! Are you on your cell phone? I’ll call you right back.” She disconnected before Fox could respond.

“What was that all about?” Tara asked. “You didn’t talk to Rafe.”

“He’s off somewhere ruining Kate’s pudding.”

They turned onto Fox’s street. The Shelby was back in his driveway. “Now isn’t that pretty?” His voice vibrated with pleasure.

“The shop delivered it back to you?”

“Someone was probably just looking for an excuse to drive it.” He left the unmarked in the street and went to the Mustang, lovingly inspecting every inch of the new window. There were women who’d die for a greeting like that, Tara thought.

Not that she was one of them.

His phone rang. She watched him as he answered and something odd happened to his expression. He was almost grinning, but not quite. He reminded her of a Cheshire cat. Tara got out of the unmarked as well.

“What?” she demanded when she joined him at the Mustang.

He put the phone back in his pocket. “I’ve got us a place to stay.”

“In New York?”

“Of course in New York. Unless you’d rather go to Savannah to visit four sisters, three husbands and seventeen kids.”

She worked it out, discounting the one who apparently didn’t have a husband. “Your sisters have an average of five and a half children apiece? You Southerners are a prolific breed.”

“Not quite. Brigid brought two back from Ecuador. My parents adopted them. She’s not the marrying type.”

“What was she doing in Ecuador?”

“Chasing a monsoon.”

“That doesn’t sound like a Southern belle.”

He grinned. “Brigid fights it. She does, however, make a mean pecan pie when she forgets herself. Are you going to come inside or wait out here?”

“I’ll wait in the car,” Tara said quickly.

He did enjoy her reactions, Fox thought. She’d be thinking that if she waited outside, it might hurry him along. He wondered if she knew how transparent she was, how that heart on her sleeve glowed bright. “It’s as cold out here as a hangman’s heart,” he pointed out.

“I’ll be fine.”

“Just the same.” He went to his mailbox and took out an envelope. He opened it and tossed a set of keys her way. “Fire up the engine, turn on the heat and lock the doors. There’s an extra service revolver in the glove box.”

Tara blanched at the implications of that. She nodded faintly and watched him go to the door. Her heart did odd things in her chest. He always had a thought for her comfort. Always. And the way he moved… He reminded her of a panther, she thought, all deadly and seductive grace. But she already knew he was as quick as a blink when it was necessary. When someone shot at them, for instance.

A giddy laugh worked up in her throat. She went back to the unmarked and grabbed her bag, carrying it to the Mustang. She shoved the key into the ignition and set the heat to blast. Then she hugged her jacket tighter and slouched down in her seat.

It was sensory overload, she decided. An emotional blitzkrieg. For nearly two weeks now her heart had been yanked one way then the other. There’d been so much to feel. It was the only reason she was suddenly waxing poetic over the way Fox Whittington moved.

Ten minutes later he came out of the building again and her stomach curled in on itself. He opened the car door and tossed a gym bag into the back seat.

“You never did mention where we were going to stay,” she said as he got behind the wheel.

“Didn’t I?”

“No.”

The car rolled out of the driveway. “Well, you’ll just have to trust me then.”

She worried about it all the way to the New Jersey state line. He was up to something, she thought again, but there was no way in hell she was going to ask him to turn the car around.

Fox watched her doze as he gunned the Mustang up the New Jersey Turnpike. It was midafternoon but traffic was surprisingly light. He imagined that many people were already tucked in with family and friends for the holiday.

He waited for the ache.

He had not missed Christmas in Savannah in eight years. Only the December he’d made detective had kept him north through the holidays. A case had been breaking and he’d known that it would mean a promotion. He’d spent most of that week with a burning ember in his gut, resenting it.

No matter what he’d said about Connie’s hellions, he missed the kids already in a way that pulled at his heart. Brigid would be home this year, too, and that was a rare thing indeed. But…there was no ache. He realized that he was pretty much content with the way this Christmas was turning out.

A lot of that was Kate’s doing.

Until she’d mentioned she had a friend with a place in New York, Fox had forgotten that she’d once been roommates with Gabriel Marsden’s wife. That man, too, had been a cop before metamorphosing into a true crime writer with a lot of good things to say. He’d lived in New York before he’d married Shawnalee Collins. In the way of true love, Marsden had uprooted himself and moved to Philadelphia when they married. A writer could write anywhere as long as his heart was in place. But the couple had kept his penthouse apartment in Manhattan.

Fox glanced Tara’s way again. Was his own heart in place? Was that why the farther he drove in the opposite direction from Savannah, the more he relaxed? He waited for the memory of Adelia to shift inside him and elbow his conscience a little for the betrayal. Nothing happened. He’d never expected that a wounded hellion with a spill of unruly dark hair might make him forget his first love, one that had haunted him through most of his adulthood.

Tara wasn’t anything he’d ever thought he’d wanted. She was Yankee to her bones. She was fast, sharp, prickly. She was also lonely, hurt and afraid. She was all the things that engaged his mind and she did quite nicely at engaging his body as well. Thinking about it, his blood stirred predictably. He wanted to pull over to the side of the road, wake her and taste her again. He wanted much more than that, but he wanted it on his terms. He just wasn’t at all sure what those terms were anymore.

He knew he could have her tonight. It wasn’t arrogance; he was simply a man who accepted what was, whether it was pleasant or painful. And what happened between him and Tara when they touched was very pleasant indeed. He’d felt the way everything inside her had surged into him twice now. And if he prompted, if he wanted, he knew they would both take it the rest of the way tonight. As long as he let her believe it was no big thing. If he let her believe it was sex, just sex, they would have a wonderful Christmas in New York.

She could hide behind that, he reckoned. But he wasn’t sure he would be content with it. Fox shifted in the driver’s seat uncomfortably. What did he want out of this relationship? He wasn’t sure, but it seemed very important that he use the time of this drive to figure it out.

“Are we there yet?”

Fox nearly drove onto the shoulder of the road at the unexpected sound of her sleepy voice. “Not unless you’ve got a hankering to spend the night in Newark.”

Her throaty laugh touched his skin. “Hankering? Where do you get these words?”

“They were learned at my mama’s knee.”

He felt her shift beside him, pulling herself up in the passenger seat. Fox decided that it was very, very important not to glance her way right now. Because if she looked soft, rumpled from her nap, with that wild hair all over her shoulders, then it might not matter what name he put to making love with her after all.

“I dreamed,” she said suddenly. “I dreamed of mine.”

She was speaking of Letitia. He waited for her to go on.

“I should have known, Fox. All those years—four years—while I was fighting Stephen over the ruby, I knew my mother would never just will it away from me. I knew there had to be a reason. But…I never guessed. She never said she was sick.”

“She was probably a lot like you.” He felt her gaze snap to him. “If you were dying, I don’t think you would be eager to tell the people who’d be hurt the most by it. You’d do without their comfort, their support. You’d go it alone.”

She hugged herself and tried to make light of it rather than concede that he was starting to see straight into her soul. “Maybe it’s the Gypsy in my spirit.”

“They moved on whenever trouble caught them.”

“Always trying very, very hard not to care about what they left behind.”

“But you care.”

“Not when I don’t want to.”

And that, he thought, might be the first outright lie she’d told him. He turned the car into the Lincoln Tunnel.

“You won’t like it here,” Tara mused when they exited onto West Forty-Second Street.

“On the contrary. I love it.”

“In small doses, maybe.”

He started to argue, then he realized it was true. He wouldn’t want to live here. Still this dose was just about right.

As he turned north, his blood began pumping with the tempo, the fractiousness, the sheer arrogance that was New York. A panhandler nudged elbow-to-elbow with a Salvation Army Santa at the corner of Forty-Seventh, both of them jostling for the same quarters. A cab cut him off near Fifty-Second. A woman in a mink was being kissed passionately by a man in torn, dirty clothes on Sixty-First.

And everywhere, no matter where he looked, there was Christmas. This city seized the holiday with both hands, Fox thought. A garish white snowflake showed in a high apartment window, blinking on and off in the dying light of the day, out of sync with the red lights that trimmed the glass. Everywhere there were people, moving fast, looking frantic, gathering bright red shopping bags with each stop they made.

He turned east across Central Park.

“Shouldn’t we stop at the jewelry store first?” Tara asked. “Liam Bradstoe said it was on the lower east side.”

“We can’t stroll in on Petro Acosta and pin him into a corner, demanding that he drop the whereabouts of a major-size ruby into our hands. That’s not how this is done.”

“If he’s got the Rose, why not?”

“Liam never said he had it.”

“Liam never said he didn’t.”

“Have you ever heard that phrase about bees and honey? When we get where we’re staying we’ll call Acosta first. We’ll pave the way to see him and in the meantime, we’ll think of a very good reason why we’d want to purchase a very big, very red, very notorious rock, even if it’s by illicit means.”

“Then we might not see him until tomorrow!”

“Not likely. It’s Christmas.”

Her heart slugged. “He’s a crook. That won’t matter.”

“Even crooks celebrate holidays.”

“You want to wait until Monday?”

He had every intention of making sure they did. “Darlin’, we’ll see him as soon as we can.”

It was a promise with an edge. Tara didn’t like it. Then again, she thought, what choice did she have? Fox stopped the car in front of a virtual skyscraper. “What are you doing?”

“Putting you up in sublime comfort. I hope.”

“Sublime?” She didn’t know where her laugh came from. She hadn’t meant it to happen. She was too upset about the delay. “You missed your calling. You should have been a writer.”

“Actually, it’s courtesy of one that we’re here.”

“Who?”

“A guy named Gabriel Marsden. It’s his apartment.”

She frowned then she put it together. “The one whose first wife was murdered a few years ago? I remember something about a Broadway producer and Marsden went underground with a beautiful blonde to flush him out.”

“That’s the one.”

“Really? No way!”

“Ah, darlin’, for all your sophistication, you’re impressed.”

“Damned right I am.”

He laughed and it felt good. She grinned, too, until a doorman in a Santa Claus costume came to open her door. Then Fox watched her smile freeze.

This, he finally realized, wasn’t just a few lonely holidays since her mother had died, leaving her with no family to go to. It was nearly a lifetime of looking in windows at other people’s joy. It was a lifetime of being left outside in the cold.

“Come on, let’s go in,” he urged her. “I’m hungry.”

She got out of the car but she paused to look up at the monolith building. “Call Acosta first. Then we can order some take-out.”

“Fine with me.” But it wasn’t going to happen that way, he thought. “Come on, let’s see how the rich and famous live.”

They got the key from the security desk. Kate had promised that Shawnalee would call ahead and arrange it. The elevator rose seamlessly and fast to the penthouse apartment and Fox hit the switch for recessed lighting in the ceiling as they entered a long, marble foyer.

“Oh,” Tara murmured. “No, turn them off.”

He’d already done it. He’d seen the long wall of windows as well.

In the gathering dark of the apartment, New York came alive beyond the glass, all glittering light. Tara went that way, her heart skipping with the sheer beauty of it. The view was electrifying. It caught her at the throat and made her stop breathing for a moment. “It’s fantastic.”

“If you think this is good, Kate made it a point to mention the master bath.”

Tara’s eyes jolted to him briefly then she took off down the hall. When she found it, she let out a peel of laughter. She would never use this, she thought. She wouldn’t dare. But then, really, who would know? A low-flying aircraft? An angel floating by on its way to heaven? The acre-sized marble tub was surrounded on three sides by floor-to-ceiling windows. It was seventeen stories above the city. It had jets. It had candles. It had a wine bucket.

“I want to try this,” she murmured, not realizing that Fox had come to stand behind her.

“Then go for it.”

His voice touched the back of her neck. A shiver traced up her spine then down again. Tara turned quickly.

And he saw that her eyes were panicked again.

“Go ahead,” he said quietly. “I’ll try to line up something with Acosta while you relax for a spell. Enjoy the view and take your time.”

The relief in her eyes that he wouldn’t make an issue of joining her should have hurt him, he thought. But it only made him want to hold her more. Fox retreated back up the hall.

Tara looked at the tub again and sighed. She was so tired. In an instant, it all tumbled in on her. The Rose was gone. A very bad person seemed to think she knew where it was. And with all her heart, with all her soul, she wished that were true. But she was only getting shot at when a knife wasn’t at her throat.

Her mother had died protecting her, her mind raced on. And now a man she didn’t know what to do about was watching her, with too much understanding in his eyes. Add to that the way he could kiss her, she thought, and yes…yes, she deserved a hot bubble bath with jets and a view to die for.

Tara eased back against the door until it clicked shut. She locked it and wondered with an uncomfortable squirming feeling in her stomach if she was keeping him out or herself in. Then she let out another gusty breath and stepped forward to lean over the tub and start the water running.

She had no matches for the candles. She had no wine. She decided that she wouldn’t let that spoil the experience. Then there was a knock on the door. She hurried back to it.

“What?” she asked, leaning her palms against the wood.

“You’ll be needing these, I think.”

Tara opened the door a crack. He held matches in one hand, a bottle of wine and a glass in the other. Her stomach rolled over. “You’re good,” she whispered.

“Darlin’, you don’t know the half of it yet.”

Her heart kicked. She snagged everything from his hands before she could wonder about just what he meant.

She closed the door again and peeled out of her clothes, the ones she’d deliberately put on this morning so as not to look too provocative. Sure, that had worked. But her clothes were no protection against what happened to her whenever he looked into her eyes.

Don’t think about it. The tub was full enough for her to put the jets on and she found the little black dial on the wall. She set the timer for forty minutes. Then she stepped into the tub with the city glittering all around her as night came on. She steeped herself in the hot water and groaned aloud, closing her eyes.

She forgot everything for nearly an hour. Then, with a click that sounded inordinately loud, the jets turned off. Tara sat up in the cooling water, a little disoriented. Had she actually slept again? No, she thought, she hadn’t. For once in her life, she had just…let go.

She knew immediately that it had been the wrong thing to do. She’d let her guard down again and she’d been burned for it. She listened hard but nothing changed. Beyond the closed bathroom door, the apartment was too silent. It was the inhuman quiet of emptiness.

She scrambled out of the tub with a small cry, grabbing a thick white towel from a pretty brass rack as she passed it. She wrapped it around herself, flung the door open, and raced back to the living room.

“Fox!” There was no answer. She’d already known there wouldn’t be.

He was gone.

Chapter 14

He’d gone to see Acosta without her.

It hit her hard and left her reeling. While she’d luxuriated in the tub, Fox had sneaked out on her. If this was some sort of payback for butting in with Liam Bradstoe, she’d…well, she’d kill him.

If she ever saw him again. If he hadn’t just…left.

Twenty-seven years of ingrained panic climbed inside her, making the idea seem less than absurd. Clutching the towel together with one hand, Tara went in search of a telephone. She found one in the kitchen and called information. They had no listing for a Petro Acosta. She didn’t know the name of his jewelry store, so she couldn’t ask for that.

See what you get for trusting him? whispered a serpentine voice at the back of her brain. He’s gone, gone, gone. They always go.

Tara pressed her knuckles against her mouth. She’d never thought he would stay forever, but she’d believed he’d at least stick with her through the search for the Rose. He wanted his killer and he thought her ruby could give that to him. He didn’t care about anything else. Why should he care?

Because his eyes said he had.

Her heart cracked. Tara snarled wordlessly at the pain and went back to the bathroom.

She grabbed the bottle of wine from the holder beside the tub. Ignoring the glass, she drank from it, carrying it back to the bedroom with her. How could she hurt over something she’d seen coming a mile away? She drank more wine and dragged a shaky hand over her eyes. Still gripping the towel in one hand, the bottle of wine in the other, she wandered back to the living room. The dog was snoozing on the sofa. She lifted her head groggily then cocked one ear at her when Tara groaned aloud.

She didn’t know how to fix things on her own this time.

Surely there was something she could be doing to go forward with the search on her own. She had Acosta’s name. Tomorrow, she thought, when the city came to life again, she would just…do something about finding the Rose herself. Except the city wouldn’t get back to business tomorrow because it was Christmas.

She swigged from the wine again, still clutching the towel. Then she heard the door open behind her and his smooth Southern drawl.

“This might be the part where you say welcome home.”

Her eyes cut to him over the upended bottle. Her heart slammed. “If I cared that you were back.”

Fox had cut his errands short. Somewhere between the restaurant and the convenience store, he’d started considering what she might think when she came out of the bathroom to find him gone. Between the convenience store and the tree lot, he’d started remembering how her eyes could go wild. He would not be the one to put the panic there, not for anything in the world.

So he’d come back. But not once in all his worries had he envisioned…this. She looked splendid in fluffy white cotton.

“I went out to grab us some dinner,” he said. “But don’t dress for it on my account.”

It put some color back in her cheeks. She looked down at herself, back at him, and then she sputtered and pulled the towel a little tighter. It only hiked up higher on her thighs. He couldn’t help it. Fox smiled.

“You saw Petro Acosta,” she accused.

Ah, so that was it. He was oddly disappointed that that had been the worst of her fears. “No. I called him.”

Her eyes widened. “You talked to him? You actually spoke to him?”

“It wasn’t a recording.”

“What did he say?”

“He agreed to see us at two o’clock tomorrow. He doesn’t seem to care overmuch about Christmas after all.”

Tara’s legs folded. She sat down on the sofa. “Tomorrow.”

“I told him we were looking for a certain keepsake for our anniversary. He was noncommittal.”

“For our what?”

“And that your favorite color is red. By the way, your name is Connie Whittington.”

That floored her too much for a response.

“Tara Cole is a little too memorable given that whenever the Rose has been mentioned in the papers, so have you. And Connie was the first thing that came to my mind.”

“That’s fine.” Cornelius would have been worse.

“Will you share that wine now?”

Tara flushed and got to her feet again, thrusting the bottle at him. Only by sheer force of will did she manage not to run down the hall. She reached the master bedroom and closed the door carefully with a quiet, little snick.

He’d gone out to get them dinner. He hadn’t betrayed her at all.

The relief was too sweet, too treacherous. She gave a quick, shaky laugh as she threw the towel on the bed and dropped to her knees beside the bag she’d packed. Only C. Fox Whittington would think to quietly place it in the bedroom for her while she was in the tub. It struck her briefly that she still didn’t know what the C stood for.

She pulled out the jade lounging pants she’d thought twice about packing but they’d been right there on top of an upended drawer so she’d grabbed them. And somewhere…yes, she’d brought her metallic gold tank top. She held the pieces up and frowned. Together, they looked like…Christmas.

But it wasn’t Christmas. It was the day before and they were in New York on the trail of the Rose. Fox had brought dinner and Gabriel Marsden had very good taste in wine. Tara dressed quickly. She took her braid down and dug her fingers into her hair to fluff it, then she looked in the mirror. Her color was high. It was just a pleasant night, she thought, a little respite from the last hellish weeks. Tomorrow they would see Acosta. That was why this giddy feeling was bubbling in her chest.

She almost believed it.

She went to the door and stepped out into the hall, forcing herself to breathe. Then she went back to the living room. And stopped cold.

“What have you done?”

The cocktail table was set for two. She stared at the plates and as shaken as she was, Tara tilted her nose up for the aroma. Lamb. He’d brought lamb for Christmas Eve. How could he know?

She had a flash of her and her mother pressed close to the table in the kitchen of the Chestnut Hill house, the scent of lamb and mint jelly wafting up from their plates. There’d been a small gift with shiny red paper beside her own. Scott had had guests over and she’d been banished from the house proper, but her mother had joined her long enough to pretend to eat with her. That Christmas Eve dinner had been everything she’d ached for since her father had smiled his rakish smile in the park and had gone away.

With a jolt, Tara tore her gaze from the table and looked around at the rest of the room. He’d brought a tree, too. There were no balls, no lights, just garland, with a huge star at the top. Belle sat beside it in a miniature Santa hat. When she saw Tara looking at her, she tipped her nose up and barked.

Beside the table, on the floor, was another plate with a can of beef stew on top of it. There was a bow stuck to the top of it.

Tara’s gaze flew to Fox. He stood in the door to the kitchen with one strong shoulder against the jamb. He’d poured the last of the wine and he held a glass in each hand.

“Business is no reason to miss Christmas.” He came into the room and put the wine on the table. Belle began circling her plate and snarling. “Have some manners,” he scolded her. “It’s a holiday.”

Tara wasn’t going to move, Fox thought, not unless he helped her. She stood in the center of the room as though she had taken root. He’d anticipated shock, maybe even frantic anger. But he hadn’t been prepared for tears. Her eyes were bright. Something shifted in his chest sweetly and painfully.

Then her gaze danced to his, not daring to believe. He had one more stop to pull out, one she hadn’t noticed yet. He thought it ought to break the ice.

He took her elbow and turned her so she was facing the hall again. Her gaze flew to the arched doorway. She saw the mistletoe and began to tremble.

“Humor me, darlin’. I’m a traditional sort of man.”

“Oh.” She spun back to him. “Oh!”

She knew he’d leave her, Tara thought. Someday, sooner or later, he would go. When the Rose was found and he had his killer, there would be no reason for him to stay. But now, just for now, he was here and he’d given her Christmas.

She didn’t melt into him this time, Fox thought. Always before it had been a slow kind of easing into his embrace. This time she flung herself at him and her mouth seized his. They hadn’t gotten even remotely close to the mistletoe.

“This will work, too,” he murmured into her kiss.

His hands found her hair, where they’d wanted to be since he’d first seen her standing there in a towel, her head tilted back for the wine, that braid so neat and tidy. He gathered it in his fists and let himself enjoy the weight of it. He let her scent fill his head.

Their mouths touched, slid, came back. She opened to him without reservation. She trusted him, she thought. She trusted him. It would damn her later, but she would believe in magic for one night.

His tongue found hers and they tangled. She caught his lower lip between her teeth. The sound he made in his throat warmed her heart. Then he pulled back to smooth the hair from her forehead.

This would be by his rules, he thought again, or not at all. He knew what he wanted now. “Tara.” He felt her stiffen just slightly in his arms.

“Please don’t stop.”

It almost swayed him. He steeled himself against the whispered plea in her voice. “I have to ask you. How much does this matter?”

Her eyes flew open and found his. He saw something happen there, something stark and startled, then the wariness set in as her walls went up. He felt her shudder quickly beneath his hands.

“It’s just…just sex,” she answered shakily. “I’d never try to hold you.”

It hurt, he realized, like something hard and knotted at the center of him. He hadn’t entirely been prepared for that. Fox set her away from him carefully.

She looked left, right, then finally back at him. “I don’t understand.”

“That was the wrong answer.” But he didn’t know the right one, Fox thought. He couldn’t quite explain. How could he say that he had no desire to go through the motions with her, not her, this woman with the defensive tilt to her chin and haunted eyes? He wouldn’t make love with a lie while she hid behind her quick words.

He wanted her to trust him. And maybe, he thought, maybe that was asking too much.

Tara looked wildly around at the tree, at the dog’s now-crooked hat, at their dinner on the table. He didn’t want her. He’d given her the world then he’d told her what she had to give in return somehow wasn’t enough. She stepped jerkily away from him, sideswiped by a pain more vicious than any she’d known before.

He was damned, Fox realized. If he turned away from her now, he would be just another man turning away when she’d reached out. If he took her in his arms just for tonight, he’d cheat himself out of something he’d only just realized he needed. Knowing that, the answer was easy after all. If he was going to let anyone down, it would be himself.

He went to her and framed her face in his hands. He found her mouth again and expected her to resist when she put her hands to his shoulders. But he didn’t expect her to sob and the sound broke his heart.

“No, darlin’, no,” he murmured, his thumbs finding her cheeks, touching the wet spots away.

“Leave me alone.”

“That’s it, darlin’, that’s just it. I can’t do that. I can’t play by those rules. I want you to hold on to me and I want you to know it.” He didn’t tilt her head back this time. He bent his neck to find her mouth without making her yield.

Her hands stayed fisted at her sides. She strained with the effort to keep them there. Hadn’t he proven twice tonight that he was just a man? She’d looked up to find him gone and then he had pushed her away.

She couldn’t do this. The Christmas decorations were just tawdry glitter. She’d only blinked for a moment and thought they shined.

But he was so persuasive. So warm. So gentle. And she ached inside to believe in him. From the beginning he’d done that to her. From the start he’d made her want.

Her mouth parted under his.

She wasn’t sure who groaned, whether it was her own sound or his. Or maybe they both mingled together. But then she was gripping the front of his shirt in both hands and his were at her waist, sliding under the hem of her tank top. His touch was barely on her skin and she shuddered anyway. His fingers spasmed on her ribs and he drew her closer.

He feasted on her neck, at the hollow of her throat, not caring anymore about the words. She didn’t have to say it. She was here, in his arms, abandoning all cares. And that was trust enough.

There were parts of her he hadn’t met yet. He found a soft pulse behind her left ear, shadowy beneath the spill of her hair. He discovered the way her eyebrows arched as though she were skeptical of everything she heard. He traced his mouth along each of them, and he ran his palms up her spine to discover each little ridge and every spasm of muscle. He eased her top up over her breasts and touched his mouth to the swell of skin over the sheer red lace of her bra.

Red, green and gold. His mind registered the colors and he wondered if she was his own Christmas package. He wondered if she even realized what she’d done with the colors she’d chosen.

She couldn’t stand anymore, Tara thought. She had a mind-numbing moment where she thought she would melt into a puddle at his feet, mortifying herself. But nothing she’d ever done yet had truly turned him away and this time when she swayed in his arms, he slipped a hand beneath each of her thighs. He gave her a little boost and she wrapped her legs around his waist and laughed. It was a shaky sound, torn right from her soul. Straddling him that way, she felt him hard against her. She met his eyes and saw his own doubt, his own fear that she would turn away again.

She finally understood what he’d tried to say earlier.

This wasn’t just sex. It meant putting a part of herself—of himself—on the line. It was reckless, chancy and terrifying. She knew now that she might care very much if he walked away when it was over, and she knew that he could. She knew her own heart might break later just to know these precious moments now.

She didn’t protest when he turned around and lowered both of them to the sofa. There was no gunshot, no rapping on the door this time to stop them. Neither one of them noticed the dog pluck a lamb chop from the table and, with a single backward glance, trot into the kitchen with it. They wouldn’t have believed what they were seeing anyway if they had watched her drop the treat to the floor and nudge the kitchen door closed with her nose.

There were many more secrets to her body, Fox thought, and he’d spend an eternity finding them all. As he unearthed each one, he lingered until she dragged his shirt free from his jeans with both hands.

“Please.”

His mouth found her temple. “What do you want, darlin’?”

“You. Now. Hurry.”

“There’s a Yankee for you.” He gave a heartfelt sigh even as something joyous leapt in his chest. Then his air knotted in his throat when her own mouth traced a pattern downward on his chest, her fingers trailing behind.

There were definitely some virtues to haste.

He tugged the glittery gold top over her head and his fingers slid beneath the waistband of her pants until she arched into his touch. He found a soft hollow on her tummy just inside her hip and pressed a searing kiss there until she writhed beneath his hands. Then, suddenly, he stripped the jade green fabric down her thighs and off.

She felt the change in him, something suddenly needy and sharp. It was like the electricity that filled the air just before lightning struck. It stirred the hair at her nape and had her gluing her mouth to his again, even as she frantically struggled with the waist of his jeans.

She was no good at this. Her fingers fumbled before they caught the snap and popped it away.

He stood beside the sofa and stepped out of the denim. Just when she expected him to settle down on top of her again, he scooped her up in his arms. “We’re going to do this right.”

“It is right.” She believed that now with all her heart.

“Not quite.”

“Will you stop with the rules?”

“In a moment.”

She never had been able to make him do what she wanted him to do, she thought shakily. She wanted now…and he wanted the bedroom. Tara wrapped her arms around his neck and held on.

He carried her to the bed in the other room and his mouth was sealed on hers again even as he lowered her to the mattress. This time when he came down on top of her, he slid her panties away with one hand. His palms swept up her belly to her breasts, beneath her bra, pushing it free. His mouth claimed her nipple, his tongue teasing, so slow, so excruciatingly lazy, and she arched into him. Craving, frantic with it.

“Does making love matter?” he murmured again, nuzzling.

“Yes!”

“Well, then.” And with that, he rose over her. She peeled his briefs free and slid her hands back up over his skin when they were gone. He found the center clasp of her bra and popped it free.

“Merry Christmas, darlin’,” he whispered against her ear. Then he found his way home for the holidays.

Chapter 15

At midnight, it snowed.

Tara had heard the forecast on the drive to New York and she knew the night was supposed to have been clear and cold. She stood in the kitchen in one of Fox’s shirts, watching fat flakes gather against the window there. She’d come to uncork more wine but instead she found herself clutching the bottle to her chest, mesmerized.

Maybe it was the work of angels.

It was a gift, she thought, from one of those she’d imagined floating past the bathroom glass earlier, the ones who—she was sure—had led her out of that pantry closet and into Fox Whittington’s arms. For this one night, she would believe in them.

She wished tomorrow would never come. She knew that talking to Acosta was an important step toward finding the Rose, but tonight, for these hours, she already had everything she’d ask the ruby if she ever found it. Her heart’s desire.

She was wanted. She was necessary to someone. And for this little while she could believe that whenever in her life she might need him, she could reach out a hand and Fox Whittington would be there.

She closed her eyes briefly and an image of her father’s face lit there, the way he had looked the one time she had seen him. She was no longer sure how much of that memory was real and how much of it her imagination had embellished over the last twenty-four years. But always, when she remembered him, it was with that straight and long black hair, with that crooked grin and those rakish dark eyes.

Aren’t you just pretty as a picture? I always knew it would be that way.

She remembered his words so clearly. He’d been kneeling in front of her as she’d sat on the park bench, swinging her legs. She’d been wearing red shorts. She remembered that part clearly because for the longest while she’d been unable to look at him. She’d kept her eyes trained down on her lap, on those red cotton shorts.

I’m your daddy.

She’d known. Somehow, from the very first moment she’d seen him approaching her and her nanny from across the park…she’d known, the way she knew her mommy loved her and that the sky was always blue unless it was going to rain.

You look like your mama, but you’ve got Cole eyes. I had to know. I just had to see you.

And then, she thought, then he had gone. He had walked away from her across the park just the same way he’d come to her, with an ambling stride that had no real purpose. And she’d waited every day of her life since then for him to come back.

Tara caught her breath as she watched the snow fall outside. Why had she ever thought he would stay with her? Because she’d been three. And when you were three, she reflected, you still believed in Santa Claus. Then you got to be five and you found out he was just a gimmick. That was the year Stephen Carmen had ripped away her Christmas dreams, dragging her down the stairs to make her watch her own mother lay out her Christmas toys. She’d shrieked and cried in protest. Her face white and angry, her mother had yelled at Stephen until he’d explained that Tara had wanted to come see and that he had only been trying to hold her back from learning the truth.

That night she’d known there was no Santa and she had believed it ever since. Until now.

“What is it, darlin’? Is something wrong?”

Fox’s voice broke into her reverie. It was easy yet it made something inside her jump. She turned to him. “My father never told me he would stay. All these years, I’ve blamed him. But…at least he didn’t lie.”

Her words squeezed at his heart. Not for what she had said, but for the fact that she had finally said it. She’d trusted him with that one small truth…and with another one so amazing it made him feel small for everything he’d demanded of her earlier.

He crossed the room to her and took the wine from her hands. He set it on the counter without taking his gaze from her face. Tara looked into his eyes and a quick shudder traipsed through her.

Of course, he’d know now, she thought. There’d been no way for her to hide it. All she could do was forestall the inevitable discussion of it.

“It’s snowing,” she said breathlessly. “Look. Isn’t that just perfect?”

Fox glanced at the snowflakes drifting down outside. He smiled because he knew she needed him to. “Tara. You should have told me.”

Tara lost her breath, then she pulled in air. “You would have taken the choice away from me. But it was my right to decide.”

“I don’t know what I would have done.”

“I’m old enough to know my own mind.”

His laugh was a little hoarse. “That’s the truth.”

“And I made my decision.”

“You certainly did.” Fox studied her face carefully in the dim glow of the stove light. Her chin had come up again as though she was ready to ward off a blow. She was pale except for bright spots of color high on her cheeks. That rosy blush, he decided, would be embarrassment this time, at least to some extent.

He’d been her first.

“I wish you had warned me,” he murmured, finding her mouth again with his own. “It was something of a shock.”

What did that mean? Tara wondered desperately. “You’re angry.”

“Did I just kiss you like I was angry?”

“I don’t know. I don’t honestly know what an angry man kisses like.”

His low laugh surprised her. Her own startled her even more. Then he kissed her again and the tension washed out of her. “Actually, I’m humbled.”

There was not another man in the world like this one, she thought. When he’d tackled her in that garden, she’d been blessed for however long he would stay. Like her father, Tara knew he had never made any promises, and she expected none. But if she forgave the one man then she could certainly give her heart to the other.

His hands were under the hem of the shirt she wore, moving up over her skin, and his kisses became fast and feverish. “How much did you want that wine?” he asked, his mouth at her throat now.

“Not much.”

“Good.” He scooped her up in his arms again and carried her back toward the bedroom.

“You’ve got to stop toting me around like a bag of laundry.”

“I don’t do this sort of thing with my laundry.”

She laughed, then gasped as he dropped her back on the bed and pulled the front of the shirt she wore away. Buttons spattered. Tara sucked in her breath. “So much for your slow Southern charm.”

“I came of age in Philadelphia.” His mouth found her nipple and he suckled. She arched into his touch and her hands sought him. She peeled away the gym shorts he’d pulled on to follow her into the kitchen and she wrapped her fingers around the hard, strong proof of how much he wanted her. The heat of him spread through her and she knew she’d never felt so right about anything, so good about anything, in her life.

She didn’t feel inept this time. She rolled into him until he had no choice but to fall over onto his back. She trailed hot kisses downward over his chest until his hands spasmed in her hair. She took him into her mouth and his voice left him on a groan.

It was a long time later when he pinned her back against the pillows again, when he swept down on her mouth with impossible greed. “About that first time.”

“I want you inside me again.”

“I’m getting to that part. Tara. Look at me. Give me your eyes.”

She did, falling into the blue of them.

“I would have gone ahead anyway. If you had told me ahead of time, I would have trusted you to know your own mind.”

It was a gift sweeter than the Christmas he’d given her. “I still do.”

“What?”

“Know my own mind.” Because he didn’t expect it she was able to push him onto his back again. This time she came over him and took him inside.

She was sore the next morning and that was a delight in itself.

Tara woke pretty much underneath him. One of his legs pinned her down at the hips. His arm was flung across her chest. She tried to ease out from beneath him and he stirred.

“Where are you going?” He tried to hold her.

“Coffee.”

“You know, that’s an addiction you’ve got going on there.” But he let her go. He knew better than to stand between her and her caffeine.

“A man who has wine buckets in his bathroom ought to have a coffeemaker, don’t you think?” She put her legs over the side of the bed.

“I also bought some instant last night. Just to be on the safe side.”

She almost purred with pleasure. Then her eyes narrowed. “You brought breakfast too, I’ll bet.”

“You’d be amazed at how many stores I found open last night.”

“You bought bacon and eggs.”

“Benedict. Eggs Benedict. That was what Liam Bradstoe was eating yesterday morning. It put the thought in my head.”

They’d never actually gotten around to eating last night, Tara realized. Which might explain why such a cholesterol-laden breakfast suddenly sounded so good. Either that, or he’d done something to her mind. “I’ll make the coffee if you cook.”

Fox had a sudden image of her own refrigerator the night he’d poked his nose in there. He had a disquieting thought. “You don’t make a habit of it, do you?”

“Cooking? Where did you ever get the delusional idea that I was a homebody?”

“Wishful thinking?”

“Wish again.”

If he did, he thought, he wouldn’t have asked for more than the way she tossed all that hair and a grin over her shoulder as she stood and walked away from him. He wouldn’t have asked for more than that long, lithe body bending to hook his gym shorts off the floor with a finger. And he definitely wouldn’t have asked for anything other than the way she backed out of the room wearing nothing more than a come-hither look.

What was she doing to him? He was gone on this woman, beyond crazy for her.

“Does this mean you’re making coffee naked?” he called when she had disappeared, shorts and all, into the hall.

“Find my ruby for me and we’ll talk about it.”

He hurried to dress. He could move quickly with the proper incentive.

Acosta’s jewelry store was called The Final Touch. They found it on East Fourth Street, closed up tight as a drum.

“He said two o’clock, right?” Tara asked nervously.

“Yes, Connie.”

“I can handle this. I really can. Just tell me again why we’re going through this charade.”

“Because anyone who knows anything about your Rose also knows the name of Tara Cole. And because I’ve got a strong gut instinct going on just now, telling me not to identify myself as a cop.”

“It may not matter if he doesn’t come to the door.” She leaned forward and rapped on the glass again.

The man who finally opened it was short. The top of his head only came to her chin. He wore a very black, handlebar mustache. His eyes were sharp and gray, as hard as diamond chips.

“I’m closed,” he said. “It’s Christmas. Stop banging at my door.”

“I’m Fox Whittington. This is my wife. Connie.”

Tara nodded fast. “I’m Connie.”

“Yeah? You don’t say. I thought maybe Connie was the dog.”

Belle chose that moment to stir in Tara’s arms. She lifted a lip and snarled. Tara clamped her hand down over her snout. “No, she’s Belle. My darling…Fox here, he gave her to me. She was a gift to me. Last night. For Christmas. But she’s…you know, ah, fractious sometimes. She doesn’t like strangers.”

Acosta looked at Fox. “She’s the nervous type.”

“She’s just high-strung,” Tara assured him.

“I meant you.”

Fox shook his head seriously. “No. Not when she decides she knows her own mind.”

Tara choked.

“And you want to buy her a ruby?” Acosta asked.

“Absolutely. I love her madly.” Fox felt his heart kick at the blithe words. “And she likes red.”

Acosta measured him with his eyes then he stepped back from the door. Tara zoomed inside straight to a long display case. “I don’t see anything here that I like.”

“Take your time, darlin’. Look things over. This man was nice enough to open up for us on Christmas.” He gave her a pointed look.

Tara looked at him blankly, then she nodded. A few minutes later, she shook her head again. “Everything here is so small.”

Fox shrugged at Acosta. “There’s a woman for you.”

“I want something big,” Tara said. “Big and red.”

“I don’t have anything like that readily available,” Acosta said. “But let’s go in the back and talk. If you’re not hellbent on laying your hands on it today, I might be able to find something for you.”

Tara’s heart kicked but she managed to pout. “But our anniversary is today.”

“Ah, darlin’, aren’t some things worth the wait?”

Tara felt a shiver scoot through her. “If something was very perfect, it would be worth waiting for.”

“Do tell,” he murmured.

She turned away quickly but he saw her face heat up. Fox grinned to himself.

“Come on in the back,” Acosta said again. “Let’s talk about this.”

They followed the little man to the rear of the store. There was a small sitting area beyond a door there. Fox saw two offices adjacent to it. There was a cheap, green vinyl sofa in the center and two green-and-brown plaid chairs. A scarred coffee table sat in the middle of it all.

“Tell me exactly what it is you want,” Acosta said, sitting.

“Something memorable.” Fox took the chair across from the man. He tugged Tara’s hand hard, spilling her into his lap. Belle growled when she got jostled.

“Shut up,” they said to her simultaneously.

“So you want a ruby,” Acosta said. “Is that about it? Did you want it set?”

“That depends on how large it is,” Fox drawled. “A bauble would be nice.”

“How much are you willing to spend?”

“No more than four million.”

“Six million,” Tara said quickly. She’d offered Stephen four and a half before he’d been killed. If the Rose was moving along black market channels, she figured it would go for more.

Where she was going to get six million dollars, she had no idea. Would Uncle Charlie go that high? She’d work it out later. If this little man with the big mustache could lead her to it, she’d dig and borrow until she came up with the price.

Acosta looked between them. “Four or six, folks? Big difference.”

“Five,” Fox said.

“Six,” Tara said.

“Can we safely say five and a half?”

“That we could.” Fox shot a look at her that warned her to shut up.

The little man got up and went into one of the offices. He came back with a pad of paper. “Tell me where I can reach you. If I come up with anything, I’ll call.”

Fox began reciting an address she’d never heard of. Tara felt something pop inside her brain. The man would track down the Rose for them, would try to call them, and it would be a dead end! “I’ll be right back.” She stood from Fox’s lap.

“What are you up to, dear?” His eyes went wary.

“I need…” Her gaze fell on the office where Acosta had gone for the notepad. “A bathroom.”

“Back through that room there,” Acosta offered.

Tara stepped into the office. “Can I close this door?”

“If you have to.”

“I have to.” Tara shut the door on Fox’s voice.

“—shy sort,” she heard him say.

Tara flew into motion, moving around the office. Her heart was slamming. The dog’s voice started rumbling. “Don’t you dare start making noise now,” Tara warned.

She put Belle down. The dog trotted over to the desk. She put her paws against the center drawer and stood.

“Well, that makes sense. It’s as good a place as any to start looking.” Unfortunately, she had no idea what she was looking for.

She just had a…feeling, Tara thought. Acosta had seemed a little too confident that he could find them a big, red rock worth five and a half million and he didn’t seem to think it would take him all that long. How many rubies like that existed in this world? She pulled open the man’s desk drawer and began to rifle through it.

Nothing. Then her gaze fell on the calendar atop the man’s desk. At eight o’clock on December 25th, there was handwriting—162 Court St, Bos, $5.2, stone = cash. The word cash was underlined.

“Stone,” Tara whispered. One stone! And they’d just offered him more than five point two million. Blindly, by pure luck, they’d offered him more.

“Darlin’? Are you alright in there?” It was Fox’s voice at the door.

Tara tore the page from the calendar and jammed it into her jeans pocket. She ran over to the bathroom and opened the door, letting it crack back solidly against the wall. “What? Did you call me, sweetheart?”

“I said, are you all right?”

She scooped up Belle again and held her close, then she went back to the office door and opened it. She wondered if her smile trembled as much as she thought it did. “Actually, I don’t feel very well.”

Fox frowned. “You’re sick?”

“Maybe I ate too much lamb last night.”

“You didn’t—” He broke off at the fierce glare in her eyes. What the hell had she done? “Okay. You ate too much lamb.”

“I told you it didn’t agree with me. Sweetheart.”

“Do you want to go back to the hotel and lie down?”

“I think that would be best.”

“You do.”

“Yes.”

It scared the hell out of him. Fox looked at Acosta. “You’ll call if you find anything for us?”

The man nodded. “I think I know where I might get something like what you have in mind.”

“Okay, then. Thanks.” Fox grabbed Tara’s arm and propelled her out of the room. He didn’t let her go until they were out on the street. “What did you just do?”

Tara’s gaze flew wildly up and down the street. She saw a Japanese restaurant on the corner. It was open. “Let’s go there.”

“Where?”

She pointed. “Fusilli. Over there on the corner.”

Fox looked. “What kind of name is Fusilli for a Japanese restaurant?”

“Do we care? We have to get away from here! Now!”

“What did you do?” he demanded again.

“I’ll tell you over sushi.”

She started walking without him. Fox moved to catch up with her. “No matter what I said after seeing Liam yesterday, you went ahead and did something, didn’t you? The hell with me being the cop and you being the civilian, you just took the bull by the horns, didn’t you? Damn it, Tara!”

“You’re swearing again.”

“I’m near ready to choke you!”

“Maybe you should be asking what you didn’t do.” She marched onward. “Where in the devil is 915 Liberty Lane? Tell me that!”

It was the address he’d given Acosta. Fox’s blood went from simmer to boil. “It’s a safe house. In Philadelphia. The city owns it but the phone and address there are untraceable.” He saw the first flicker of doubt cross her face. “If Acosta calls there a recorded message will pick up. I’ll call him back and maybe we’ll find your ruby.”

“I think I found it anyway.”

“What?”

“Would you please come into the restaurant now?”

Fox looked back at the jewelry store and had the sudden conviction that going into the restaurant might be a very good thing to do after all.

They reached the corner and he shoved the door hard with his shoulder, then he held out an exaggeratedly polite hand and gestured her to enter. Tara sniffed and brushed past him. He watched her sail to a table. There’d been whole moments last night when he’d had the wild idea that he was falling in love with her. But how the hell could he love a woman with more spine than a porcupine? With more guts than the average Samurai wrestler? With more courage than…

His mind broke off and went blank. He watched her lay a piece of paper carefully on top of the table she’d chosen.

Fox followed her and picked it up as he sat. It was a page from a calendar. Along about eight o’clock tonight, it said 162 Court St, Bos, $5.2, stone = cash.

He was a hard man to alarm. He’d seen it all over the years. Mankind was cruel and people were greedy. They killed, they hurt children, they poured drugs into their own veins. He didn’t like it but he was okay with it because he knew he was smarter, stronger, more capable than most any thug he might meet. But now his hands were shaking.

“Where did this come from?” he asked too quietly.

“Acosta’s calendar.”

“Acosta’s calendar?”

“I should have copied it down, right, instead of just taking it? I’m sorry. But you called me and I panicked. I just grabbed it.”

“You grabbed it.”

“I tore it from his calendar.”

“And just what…” Fox paused to draw breath. “What do you imagine he’ll think when he discovers it missing?”

“Maybe he won’t notice. Maybe he won’t look. Maybe after we left, he just went home. It’s Christmas,” she added feebly.

“He met us at two o’clock on Christmas afternoon! It seems like a pretty damned good guess that he doesn’t care too much about the holiday!”

Tara flinched back from his temper. “Okay, okay, maybe I made a mistake.”

“Maybe?”

“All right, I did. So fix it.”

His eyes went wild.

“Well, you’re the cop! Do something!”

“Now she remembers.” All he could do, Fox realized, was get her the hell out of Dodge as quickly as humanly possible. “Acosta’s got organized crime connections. We’re as good as dead.”

He watched her blood drain from her face. “Don’t get melodramatic.”

“Darlin’, I’m not.”

Something cold as ice speared into her soul.

Fox dug in his wallet for some money as a waitress bore down on them with her eyes pinned on Belle. He passed her a fifty. “She’s part of the family. It’s Christmas. Please let her stay.”

The woman looked at the bill in her hand, nodded, and backed away. Tara grabbed Belle, ignoring her little nipping mouth, and squashed her down on her lap.

“That dog just cost me money,” Fox said, “and no way is the Department going to reimburse me for it.”

“I’d offer to pay you back but I’m a little broke at the moment. I just agreed to pay five and a half million to get my own ruby back.”

His eyes narrowed. “You don’t have that kind of money. Do you?”

She hesitated warily. “Why?”

“I just like to know what I’m getting into. Like how much more wealthy you are than I am. It’s a macho Southern thing. It’s bred into our genes to be the breadwinner.” He paused. “So do you? Have that kind of money?”

Breadwinner? Her heart slugged at the implications of that. “No. My mother left me some money—a lot of it, actually—but I spent a great deal of it fighting Stephen.”

“Thank God for that.”

“But I can get it,” she added. “That kind of money.”

His temper unleashed again. “You won’t have to buy it from Acosta! We’re not actually going to buy the damned thing! We were setting him up!”

Her mouth thinned with determination. “I will if I have to. I’ll buy it if it’s the only way I can get it back.”

“Well, it’s not the only way since you’ve developed sticky fingers. Come on. It looks like we’re off to 162 Court Street, Boston.”

Everything went out of her. Tara thought she might actually cry again. “Thank you.”

“Save it until I’m sure we’ll live through this.” He looked at the torn calendar page again. “Stone equals cash,” he read aloud. What else could it be? Acosta was going to move a single gem tonight for 5.2 million dollars. And he was going to make a special trip to Boston to do it. He’d said he thought he knew where he could lay his hands on the kind of gem they’d described.

Fox laid his badge on the table to forestall any histrionics, took his gun out of his shoulder holster, and checked to make sure it was as loaded as nature and the mechanical wonders of mankind could make it.

“Okay,” he said finally. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

Chapter 16

They made it in and out of the Marsden apartment in ten minutes flat, gathering the few belongings they’d left there. By four o’clock they were back at Fusilli, waiting and watching the storefront.

“What if we missed him?” Tara fretted. “What if he left before we got back?”

“If we don’t see him leave by five I’ll call the store. If he doesn’t answer we’ll go to 162 Court Street in Boston and we’ll pick him up there. But I’d rather tail him to be absolutely sure we don’t lose him.”

He was so calm, Tara thought, though this was probably the last thing he had envisioned he’d be doing on Christmas night. Something quickened in the area of her chest, stopping her breath short. She preferred to think it was gratitude. She did not want to examine how deep her feelings for him were starting to go.

“What about Connie?” she asked. “You told her you’d call on Christmas.”

Fox realized that he hadn’t thought about his family since he’d been scouring the city last night for the odds and ends he’d need to give Tara a Christmas. “They’ll figure out that I got tied up on the case.”

She wasn’t prepared for the spasm that came to her heart when she considered that if the woman really was his sister, then he would just take out his cell phone and do it. Then, like cosmic intervention, it rang. He dug it out of his pocket.

“Fox Whittington.”

“It’s a woman!” Brigid’s voice sang through the connection. “That’s why you’re not here!”

Fox grinned. He spoke to her so rarely. “Merry Christmas to you, too, baby.”

Across the table, Tara jolted visibly.

“It can’t be another promotion,” Brigid said. “That would make you—what, a captain?”

Fox chuckled. “Not even close.”

“Who is she?”

“My case?” He looked across the table at Tara and winked at her.

Her heart stopped. Who was on the other end of the phone?

“Is that what they call it in America these days?” Brigid asked. “I’ve been out of the country awhile. So tell me everything about her.”

He was not a stupid man. It was a mine field he wouldn’t cross when the subject matter was sitting directly across from him watching him with wary and suspicious eyes. Fox handed the phone to Tara. “She wants to speak to you.”

“Who?” She reared back against her seat.

“It’s Brigid.”

“The monsoon chaser?”

“That’s the one. She’s the youngest.”

Tara took the phone warily. “Hello?”

“Break his heart and I’ll come to Philadelphia personally and tear you apart.”

Shock seized her throat. “I beg your pardon?”

“Oh, my God! You’re a Yankee!”

“What?”

“You said pardon.” She made the consonants hard and flat.

“What was I supposed to say?” Tara asked, startled.

“Pah-don.”

“I can’t do that.”

Tara heard laughter in the woman’s voice, easy and sultry and unperturbed like her brother’s. Apparently, they didn’t breed type A personalities in Georgia.

“By the way,” Brigid asked, “what’s your name?”

She caught herself back from her musings. “Tara.”

“No kidding! That’ll work.”

Tara passed the phone dazedly back to Fox. “She likes my name.”

“It worked for Scarlet.” He took the phone back, spoke for a few minutes, then disconnected. “It’s not everyone who can hold their own in a conversation with Brigid.”

“Did I just do that?”

“I believe so.”

“Wow.” Then she added, “Damn it.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I forgot to ask her about Cornelius,” she joked.

His tea didn’t go down quite right. Fox coughed. “I doubt if Brigid even remembers him.”

“Her brother? How could she forget a brother?”

“She chases storms for a living. She lost a good deal of her memory in a tornado in Wichita.”

Tara laughed then instantly sobered again as her heart shifted. She was going to miss him so much when this was over.

She was trying to figure out why she felt so sure she wouldn’t be seeing him again once they got the ruby back when Petro Acosta walked into the restaurant. She saw him out of the corner of her eye. Tara dove instinctively. She went flat on the booth seat, the dog in her arms.

Fox didn’t move, but after a moment she heard his voice. “Come on, lovebird. Sit up and look at me with adoration in your eyes.”

“Are you crazy?”

“I’m just playing the odds that he hasn’t noticed his calendar page is missing yet. And if that fails, maybe he won’t look our way.”

Tara eased up again. Acosta was standing at the cash register. He turned and caught sight of them, seeming only mildly surprised.

Tara jerked around again to face Fox. “Is he armed?” Her voice was a squeak.

“Not that I can tell. But I wouldn’t expect him to stroll in brandishing an Uzi.” He paused. “He’s leaving. You must have an angel sitting on your shoulder.”

Belle barked. Tara muzzled her again. She looked in time to see Acosta depart carrying a bag of take-out.

“That ought to make you think twice before you swipe anything from a man’s office again. If you pull this in Boston I’m leaving you there.” He looked at his watch. “My guess is that he’s going to have some dinner then head out.”

“So we’ve got…what? An hour to kill?”

“That would be my guess. Are you hungry?”

Tara looked at the buffet in the middle of the room. Everything that had transpired had left her stomach feeling unsettled. “No.”

“Then scoot on over here to my side of the booth and kiss me.”

Her jaw dropped. “What?”

“In case he comes back.”

“Petro Acosta? Are you serious?”

“Maybe he forgot his teriyaki sauce.”

She threw back her head and laughed. “Try again.”

He considered for a moment. “Darlin’, I’m about to buy you a five and a half million dollar ruby. I want something to show for it.”

The next thing she knew, he’d moved and was on the seat beside her. She pulled her head back. “If you’re thinking about a reprise of last night, let me remind you we’re in public.”

“Well, I am thinking about a reprise of last night. But I’m a patient man. I’ll take my good, sweet time getting there.” And his mouth found hers.

She couldn’t do this. She wouldn’t do this. They were in a restaurant! His tongue teased hers and she met it. “Stop it,” she said against his mouth, but halfheartedly.

“You do things to me. Did I mention that?”

“I—”

“You’re everything I never wanted in a woman.”

She choked.

“And I’m loving it.” Then he pulled back from her fast, his eyes on the window.

“What?” she asked, feeling dazed.

“That didn’t take long. Mr. Acosta seems a bit impatient to make Boston.”

Tara whipped around and saw the man leaving his store, but her mind got stuck. “You just kissed me with your eyes open.” How else would he have noticed Acosta?

“Well, I wouldn’t ordinarily. These are extenuating circumstances. Otherwise, the man could have been eating a hot dog in Fenway Park and we’d still be here nibbling on each other.”

She pressed her hand to her stomach as it tried to somersault. He did have a way with words.

When she looked back, Fox was on his feet with his keys in his hand. They watched the man head for the narrow parking lot beside his store.

“Catch the dog,” Fox said.

Belle was pacing around the buffet. Tara let out a quiet cry, jumped to her feet, and grabbed her. Fox went as far as the door and stopped, holding a hand out to keep her back as well. Tara peeked over his shoulder.

Acosta went to a white Cadillac she’d noticed earlier. He got in and a moment later, he turned the car north.

“On the count of ten, let’s go,” Fox said.

“Why ten? We’ll lose him!”

“My way this time, darlin’. My way.” He gave her a look that had her choking back anything else she might have said.

He counted down then he pushed the door open and they jogged to the restaurant’s parking area. Tara scrambled into the Mustang. She tossed the dog into the back seat and fastened her seat belt. Belle yelped and Fox drove.

“How long to Boston?” Tara asked.

“Three hours. Maybe three and a half if he’s a poke behind the wheel.”

The Cadillac was gone. “What are you—” Then she swallowed the question. He’d made a few quick turns and now, somehow, the car was ahead of them again.

Fox eased back on the gas until they were a block and a half behind. “Rest a spell, darlin’. Think a sweet thought of me while I get us there.”

The turmoil in her stomach tangled even more. He said it so mildly—that was his way—but she wondered how much he meant it.

She set her jaw and deliberately put her mind on finding the Rose.

They were still an hour outside Boston when the dog started to act up. Fox frowned into the rearview mirror as he drove. “What’s wrong with her?”

“I don’t know. Maybe she doesn’t like cars.”

“We drove to New York with her without a problem.”

Belle continued to stand with her paws braced against the back seat, snarling and barking out the back window.

“Maybe she doesn’t like Jeeps,” Tara specified. There was one directly behind them. Then the vehicle in question turned off at the next light and the dog kept barking. Tara groaned. “This is getting on my nerves.”

Belle kept it up until they made it into the city. By then, Tara had her hands pressed to her ears and Fox was scowling in a way she’d rarely seen him do. He dropped back even farther behind the Cadillac then he turned into a gas station.

“What are you doing?” Tara shouted loud enough to be heard over the dog. “You want to get gas now?”

He shot her a look. “My…way. Keep repeating it over and over until you grasp the concept.” He paused, seeming to think about it. “Now that we’re in the city I don’t want to take the chance of him noticing that we’re still behind him.” Fox rolled his window down when the attendant came to the car. “How do I get to Court Street from here?”

“Head straight down Washington until it dead-ends,” the attendant said, then he shouted and jumped back from the car. “What the hell?”

Tara turned in her seat just in time to catch the blur that was Belle out of the corner of her eye. The dog sailed straight through Fox’s open window. Tara cried out in alarm.

“What I want to know,” Fox said with uncharacteristic anger, “is how much more wrong this little excursion can go.” Then he was out of the car and running after the dog.

Instead of barking at something behind the car, now she raced in the direction Acosta had gone. He’s never going to catch up with her, Tara thought helplessly and wondered why she should care. They’d definitely be better off without the animal. But…she cared. The stupid little thing was going to get hit by a car if they didn’t catch her.

Tara got out of the Mustang as well and took off after Fox and the dog. She saw him catch the mutt at the next intersection. The crazy animal had stopped dead in the middle of the street. She was still barking and now she was jumping around in circles, holding up traffic. Fox scooped her up with one hand and offered a sick smile in the direction of the stopped cars.

Tara turned and jogged back to the Mustang. A moment later, Fox yanked his door open and tossed the dog inside. She was trying to bite him.

“The beast is deranged,” he muttered. He waved his thanks at the attendant who was now avoiding the car. He put the Mustang back in gear and they hit the street again, shooting across traffic.

“We don’t even know where Washington is!” Tara protested.

“My…way,” he said again, then he relented. “I saw an exit for it before we left the interstate so it’s got to be back in this direction. It only stands to reason.”

They picked up Washington Street just about where he’d thought they would. She was impressed. “You’re good.”

“Darlin’, you’re catching on.” He turned north again.

“How do we know the dead end isn’t the other way?”

“My…way,” he repeated.

A few minutes later, a dead end appeared in front of them. And there was Court Street. There was no sign of the Cadillac either left or right.

“Now what?” Tara fretted.

“I’m thinking.” Then he added, “First we need to get rid of the car. If he noticed it in the lot beside the restaurant, I don’t want him to see it again here.”

“Not to mention the fact that we’ve been driving along behind him for the last three hours,” she mentioned.

“Ah, but he didn’t see that.”

“How do you know?”

He grinned at her. “Darlin’, how quickly you forget. I’m good.”

He circled around two blocks and found an empty metered spot at the curb. He dropped a Philadelphia Police Department sign on his dashboard.

“That’s not going to work here,” Tara said.

“If we come back and they’ve towed it we’ll have an intercity war. Come on.”

Tara got out of the car then she hesitated. They had another problem. “What about the dog?”

“Leave her.”

“The way she’s carrying on?”

“That’s exactly why we have to leave her. If she keeps it up, we’ll be about as subtle as a sonic boom.”

“But what if she tears up your upholstery?”

“Then she will die.”

Tara leaned into the car again. “You heard him.” Belle looked at her briefly then she returned to the serious business of barking at the back window. Tara opened the window half an inch, then she locked and closed the door.

Fox caught her hand in his. They ran back toward Court Street.

“Does your way involve some kind of plan for when we get there?” Tara gasped.

“It depends on what we find. But I’m good at thinking on my feet.”

She started to worry about that but then they reached Court Street. And the Cadillac was there.

Tara pulled up short and Fox urged her back around the corner. They peered around and watched Acosta get out of the car. Tara leaned against the building and fought for her breath.

“He’s inside,” Fox said finally. “Let’s go.”

The street was lined with four-and five-story brick apartment buildings. Fox stepped up the stoop of the one at 162 and gently tried the door. It was locked.

“How did Acosta get in?” Tara asked, crowding up behind him.

Fox motioned at the buzzer beside the door.

“Oh.” Tara pushed it.

Fox’s eyes went wild. “What did you just do? What did you do this time?” He caught her wrist, murder in his expression. Then he broke off because a man’s cultured, baritone voice was coming through the intercom.

“Yes, sir. I have a delivery,” Tara replied to it. “From the…from the supermarket.”

“The supermarket?” Fox mouthed disbelievingly. Then there was a buzzing sound and the door unlocked.

“Take it straight up to the kitchen,” said the man’s voice. “And in the future, please use the back door. You’re new, aren’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, then. You’ll learn.”

Fox grabbed the door before the buzzing ended and they stepped inside. Tara shot him a look. “Sorry. Your way wasn’t working.”

“I hadn’t thought of a way yet!” Then Fox looked around and his brows climbed his forehead.

“Wow.” Tara pivoted in place. “It sort of puts the Marsden place to shame, doesn’t it?”

The room they stood in was immense. Normally, Fox reckoned, it would have housed four separate apartments, two to the left and two to the right. But while there was little doubt that the building had once been an apartment house, somewhere along the line it had been renovated into one very large single unit.

The floors were marble. There were three sitting areas and a recreation area with a pool table and a bar in the far corner. To the left was an elevator. Dead ahead was a door.

Fox pointed at it. “This way. I don’t want to use the elevator. It’s just a hunch, but the grocery delivery girl might not be expected to ride it upstairs.”

As they reached the door and Fox pushed it open, a buzzing sound came from behind them. Tara jumped before she realized what it was. The door buzzer again. Someone was coming in behind them. She pushed frantically at Fox and they stumbled together through the door just as the one at the front of the room opened.

They were in a stairwell. In contrast to the room they’d just left, it was all dull concrete and metal railings with a single dim yellow bulb overhead. Tara went to the rail and looked down. There was an exit sign beside the door there. No doubt it was the delivery entrance the man had mentioned.

She straightened and looked at Fox. “Nowhere to go but up.”

He caught her hand and hurried her up the stairs. Tara kept waiting to hear the stair door open behind them. Her heart began jumping but it didn’t happen. Whoever had come in after them was obviously an invited guest and had used the elevator.

At each landing, Fox paused and eased open the door. “Kitchen,” he said at the next level.

They went up another flight. On the fourth level, just as Tara was beginning to despair of ever finding Acosta, Fox opened the door then quickly closed it again.

“What?” she whispered. “What is it?”

He held a finger to his lips and maneuvered her in front of him, reaching around her to inch the door open a crack. He cupped a hand over her mouth to keep her quiet.

Tara’s breath left her. She couldn’t have uttered a sound if she had wanted to. The Rose. They’d found her Rose!

The room beyond the door was as huge and hollow as the first level had been with the same marble floors and furniture isolated in groups. A silver-haired man in a burgundy jacket was seated at a desk thirty feet to the left side of the door. Acosta sat across from him, fiddling with his huge mustache. Something red caught the light on the desk between them.

“Don’t get your hopes up,” Fox whispered. “We’re too far away to be sure. It could be anything.”

“Good advice,” said a voice from behind them.

Tara jerked around in Fox’s arms, looked over his shoulder and screamed.

Chapter 17

Fox rounded on the guy. His fist cut him under the chin and the man stutter-stepped backward beneath the blow. His heel missed the step behind him and he tumbled down the stairs.

It bought them maybe thirty seconds, Fox knew.

“Go up!” Fox slid his gun free from his shoulder holster, grabbed Tara and lifted her bodily toward the stairs. His mind leapfrogged ahead to various other alternatives, discarding them as quickly as they occurred to him. He could have gone down, could have shot his way right past the guy, Fox thought, if he had been alone.

Panic twisted his guts. He saw no other way to keep her safe and alive than to head for the roof. If he could keep Tara near the door there, Fox thought, if he could somehow get the guy to move in front of them, he could hold him off long enough for her to race right down to the street again. If. It was the best he could come up with.

Then a muffled gunshot sounded from somewhere distant, somewhere below them. Tara screamed again. Acosta. It had to be Acosta, Fox thought, or the guy in the burgundy jacket. The commotion had alerted them. Now, Fox figured, they were probably running for their lives from all of them.

He shoved at Tara again and this time she turned and ran up the stairs. There was a door at the top and nowhere farther to go. She came up hard against it and her breath whooshed out of her as Fox backed into her hard. Tara pounded her hands helplessly against the metal bar on the door until it finally shot open. Then she staggered out onto the roof.

For a moment, the building seemed to move beneath her feet. She was going to die. They were going to die up here.

“Over here!” Fox shouted as he came through the door. “Stay behind me!”

She whipped back to him. “Behind you? Are you out of your mind?”

“If they run clear of the door, you can go back down! I’ll open it again as soon as I hear them get close! Their momentum should carry them a fair distance.” The clock in his brain clicked down. Twenty-three seconds, twenty-two, twenty-one. The fall down the stairs wouldn’t delay that guy forever, Fox thought again. He should be on his feet again and gaining on them by now.

He was holding the door shut with his full weight. Any heartbeat now, the man would hit the other side. And when that happened, it would already be too late. His last, best plan would be shot to hell in a handbasket. For it to work, he had to open it before they got here.

“Come with me!” Tara shouted instead of coming toward him.

“I’ll be right behind you!”

“Liar!”

Liar? Liar? He stared at her a moment, and then everything inside him simply stopped.

She was running for the edge of the roof.

“Tara!”

At the same time, the guy finally crashed into the door behind him. Fox took a single step forward to let him come through but the door had broken the guy’s momentum. He only staggered a few steps.

Tara leapt to the roof of the next building.

The building they were on was taller. She landed over there and disappeared from his view. He thought he heard her cry out. His heart was a sledgehammer against his chest, each excruciating thud tearing breath from his lungs. For the first time in his life, Fox knew stark, absolute terror. “Sweet, dear God.”

In his peripheral vision he saw the man who had sneaked up on them begin to charge him. Fox shot, somehow missed. The man kept coming. Fox took off after Tara.

He had never been particularly fond of heights and four stories was a very long way down. The gap between the buildings looked like five feet or more. Fox probably got up more speed than he had to. But he admitted it. Damn it, he was scared to death.

He jumped.

Then he was clearing the edge of the other roof by a good foot and a half. He hit and rolled and came up to find Tara on her hands and knees, panting for breath, staring back at him.

“Will they follow?” she gasped. “Do you think they’ll jump, too?”

His breath felt like flames in his lungs. “No. They’re not raving lunatics.”

“I’m not a lunatic,” she whispered. “I only just found you. Didn’t want to die.”

If he had been standing, it would have cut him off at the knees. Fox reached out for her. She crawled to him and wrapped her arms around his neck. He buried his face in her hair and smelled something spicy and floral, heated and sexy and provocative.

He opened his mouth and almost told her he loved her.

Fox closed his eyes briefly. It wasn’t the time. He kissed her temple instead. “I’d like to spend a little more time with you as well.” It occurred to him then that if he had been in this situation with the kind of woman he’d thought he’d wanted—if he’d been with Adelia—they’d both probably be dead right now. There was no one quite like this woman, he thought, no one on earth.

He put her carefully away from him and moved one leg then the other, his left arm, his right. There was no severe damage from his leap. She was already on her feet and edging back behind a huge heating unit on the roof. He stood as well and joined her at the heating unit.

“We’ll go downstairs through the building,” he decided.

“They’ll be waiting for us on the street!”

“We’ll get to a phone and make sure there are cops there, too.”

“You’re very good.”

“If we get out of this with all our parts intact, I’ll even prove it. Again.” He hooked an arm around her neck and kissed her hard.

Instantly, a shot rang out from the roof next door. “Time to go,” they said together and headed for the stairs.

“I should have considered all the ramifications of that door buzzing behind us,” Fox said. “Someone has been following Tara for days. It only stood to reason that the guy was still on her trail. Then there was the matter of the dog.” It had been as though Belle had known, he thought. The idea unsettled him.

Tara couldn’t stop shaking as she watched him brief the two cops who had answered their call. They were in the security office of the building they had jumped to and she sat in a metal chair against the wall clutching a cup of hot coffee between both her hands. This was, thank God, a normal apartment building, unlike the bizarre place next door. They’d found this room off the lobby, bursting in on a startled guard. Fox had called the Boston police. Now she let him do the talking. His voice was a comforting and distant murmur.

Her thoughts were jumbled. There were so many in her head, it was almost painful. She loved him. First and foremost, there was that. She wondered how she had ever let it happen. She was so careful, always careful with men! But she’d known it the instant she’d watched him jumping onto the building, flying toward her. She loved him.

She’d thought he might not make it. She’d felt not a qualm when she had leapt, but the thought of him plunging four floors had debilitated her. Her legs had given out beneath her the first time she’d tried to stand. She couldn’t imagine going on without him.

But, of course, she was probably going to have to. Because he hadn’t made any promises, after all.

The second, duller ache in her heart was for the Rose. It had been on that desk next door. What were the odds that it was still there? Slim, she thought, groaning aloud, to none.

Then Fox’s words penetrated her thoughts and she looked up sharply. The dog. “She knew we were being followed!” Tara said suddenly. “She must have…I don’t know, smelled him or sensed him or something. That’s why she was acting so wacko.”

“She kept it up for a good hour or more,” Fox agreed. “It was…bizarre.” Then he put his own coffee cup down on the desk. “Not to take over for you guys—this is your turf—but I’d like to have a look next door.”

Tara shot to her feet. The Rose. She had to find out if it was still there. She knew by the look in Fox’s eyes that he did not think it would be. She tugged him toward the door. “Let’s go.”

Fox watched her pace ahead as they left the building and walked next door. Everything tightened inside him and he lengthened his stride to keep up with her. Her heart was going to break when they got to the fourth floor of the other building and she found out that her ruby was gone again.

He nudged her gently aside to make sure he was the first one through the door at 162. The cops had called for backup and two more officers waited for them there. They had already disengaged the buzzer-lock system. Fox started to tell her to wait on the stoop for them, but she was safer with him than anywhere else. He loved her. He’d almost lost her. He wasn’t letting her out of his sight.

They rode the elevator up in silence then the ding sounded at the fourth floor and the doors slid open again. Fox’s reflexes were fast when they had to be, but he couldn’t stop her. Tara shoved past him with a strangled sound and ran into the big fourth floor room. Fox stared, stunned. The ruby was on the floor.

And so was the silver-haired man. One glance told Fox he was dead. There was a neat, black hole in his forehead.

“Stay back,” a cop ordered harshly, drawing his own gun. “Everybody stay back.”

Tara barely heard the man. Her blood was singing in her ears with a pitched, painful sound. She lunged forward anyway and grabbed the ruby. “It’s mine,” she whispered. “The Rose is mine.”

Then she picked up the stone. And she knew, in that very first heartbeat when her fingers closed around it, that it wasn’t her Rose.

From her earliest childhood, Letitia had taken it out of its velvet bag and placed it in her hands. It had always been warm. It had been alive. It had had a soul as real as the red tears in its depths. She remembered the way it had felt when she’d picked it up off Stephen’s floor the night he’d been killed. Then, too, it had pulsed at her touch.

This rock was hard and cold.

Tara felt a wad of tears gather at the back of her throat, and then—damn it, damn it—they spilled from her eyes. The disappointment was crushing. She couldn’t get air.

“It’s a forgery,” she moaned.

The cop herded her back to the door as the rest of the cops poured into the room. “That explains a lot,” he said. “The dead guy is Robin Duguay. He’s fairly notorious in these parts. He’s a collector. He would have known that what your Acosta was trying to pass off to him was a counterfeit. It looks like Acosta didn’t take that very well.”

Fox nodded. “Well, the guy in black didn’t kill Duguay. He was in the stairwell with us when I heard the shot.”

“The next question is…where has Mr. Acosta gotten to?” The officer took a radio from his belt and spoke into it briefly. Then he handed it to Fox. “We’ll put out an APB but we’ll need a description.”

Fox took the radio. “You’ve got it.”

“We haven’t picked up the other guy yet, either, the one in black,” the cop said. “You might want to give us some details on him also.”

This, Fox thought, was a fine kettle of fish. But then, the case had been an odd one since he’d watched a stunning woman with long black hair slip out the back door of Carmen’s home.

Fox caught Tara’s hand in his as they walked back to the car two long hours later. “Darlin’, I’m sorry.”

His words, his understanding, made her stumble. She forced herself to shrug though the movement felt brittle. “I’m not the first person to chase down a wild goose. I won’t be the last.”

Such bravado, he thought, his own heart breaking for her. “The goose lost some feathers,” he said quietly, “and it left a clear trail. We know more than we did when we got here. It hasn’t all been a loss.” He saw hope light up her eyes and he kept on. “When you went to Carmen’s home that night to buy the Rose, did you call him or did he call you?”

She seemed startled but she thought about it. “I called him as soon as the Memorandum of Decision came in from the court.”

“And he met with you willingly?”

“For Stephen? Yes, willingly enough.” Tara’s footsteps stalled.

“What if he had the phony ruby made to turn over to you in case he lost, if the court ordered him to? When that didn’t happen, I’m wondering if he planned to sell it to you anyway. You know, double his profits.”

Her heart punched. “It makes so much sense. It’s something he would do, hedging his bets. My tie to the stone is emotional. He probably figured I’d never have it authenticated.” She would have known anyway, she thought, just as she’d known tonight. “Except…” She shook her head. “Just as you said the other day, the ruby is too notorious. If he had tried to sell the real one to someone else—and what good would it have done him otherwise?—it would have made the papers. I would have wondered what was going on, how anyone could be buying the Rose when I had it.”

He touched her hair and a curl sprang up and wrapped around his finger again. “Darlin’, don’t you ever learn? Think underground. If he had two rubies, Carmen had a win-win situation going on whether he won the court fight or not.

“My guess is that he had some connection to Acosta,” he continued. “We know that now because Acosta turned up with the fake and Carmen turned up dead. My best guess says that there was some kind of confrontation between the two of them with one or both of the rubies in the center of it. Maybe Carmen tried to save his life by turning the real rock over to Acosta. Or maybe he tried to fool Acosta by giving him the fake. All I can figure is that the real one—the one you stepped on—got kicked aside in the scuffle. And Acosta fled the scene with the fake one, which he tried to sell tonight.”

“You got your killer. Acosta must have killed Stephen.” Tara hugged herself miserably. She did not have her Rose. One had not led to the other after all.

“He’s a long way from custody,” Fox said quietly. “About all I’ve got is probable cause and we don’t even know where he is. Plus, the Boston P.D. will want the first shot at him.” He started walking again, still thinking aloud. “Once Carmen was dead, there are a couple of scenarios we can play out. Maybe Acosta thought the fake ruby was the real ruby all along and he was going to sell it to Duguay in good conscience. Or maybe he realized that the one he had wasn’t real and he put that goon on you, trying to get his paws on the genuine article. That makes more sense. Either way, he was probably going to use our offer to up the price on Duguay, and if Duguay wouldn’t come up with the money then he could always fall back on our offer.”

“But why would he think I had it? It never made the papers that I was in the house that night unless…unless he stayed after he killed Stephen and saw me.”

“No,” Fox said levelly.

“No?” Something seized in the area of her chest. “Someone else?”

“I thought it was probably the killer until it started to look like he didn’t have the ruby, either.”

Tara closed her eyes briefly, weakly. “The guy in the black coat! He wasn’t in the house with me. He was outside watching me. What kind of cop are you?”

He blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“You were quick enough to jump on me! Didn’t you look for anyone else out there in Stephen’s yard?”

It was her frustration, he thought. It brought dark clouds to her eyes. “I did. He didn’t make his presence quite as obvious as you did. I never saw a trace of him.”

Tara kicked a fire hydrant. “Oh, damn it. Damn it! We still don’t know anything! Why did Acosta kill Stephen? And if Acosta took the fake Rose, where’s mine?”

They reached the car. Tara slumped against it and Fox opened the door. “What the hell?” he muttered.

Tara straightened from the car and looked at him quickly. “What’s wrong now?”

“Where’s the dog?”

“In the car.”

“She’s not in the car.”

“She has to be in the car. We locked her in.” Tara turned around and stuck her head inside. She spent fifteen, twenty, then thirty seconds looking around. She pulled out again and dropped to her knees to peer under the car.

“She’s gone,” she said shakily, standing again. “But that can’t be. She couldn’t get out of a locked car!”

Fox felt the events of the night tunneling in on him. He felt shaky. “One wouldn’t think so.”

“She didn’t tear a hole in the floor to get out.”

“She didn’t tear a hole anywhere.” The interior of his car was pristine. “The window?”

“I can’t even get my thumb through that crack! This isn’t possible,” Tara protested. Her head was swimming. “First the real Rose disappeared, now the dog. Both of them, just…just poof! What’s going on here, Fox?”

“That’s what I want to know, lady. And this time you’re going to tell me. Where the hell is that rock?”

Tara had no more energy to scream with but shock went through her like cold electricity. Fox jolted and grabbed his gun again, but it was too late. The man who had cornered them earlier already had an arm wrapped around Tara’s throat and his own gun pressed to her temple.

He’d caught up with them again.

Chapter 18

He had a voice that sounded as though someone had taken sandpaper to it, Fox thought, and now, facing him from two feet away, the man’s breath smelled like rotten mushrooms. Fox had never doubted that it was the same guy who had terrorized Tara in the elevator.

“Put the gun down,” the man growled. “I want to see your weapon hit the concrete by the time I count to five or I’ll shoot her. One. Two—”

Fox never hesitated. He opened his fingers and let his gun fall.

“Don’t!” Tara cried. The last of the word ended on a gurgle as the man tightened his hold around her throat.

She felt the gun leave her temple. She had a moment to suck in a breath, then she saw the man’s arm extend in front of her. He had the gun aimed at Fox now.

“You,” he said to Fox, “we don’t need.”

Tara made a wailing sound of denial. No, no, no, no! She was tired of being poked and prodded with knives and of being shot at. She hadn’t been ready to die on the roof and she was damned if she was going to let Fox be shot now. She brought her hand up over her left shoulder, still clutching the ruby. She smashed it as hard as she could into the man’s face.

She hit his nose. Blood flew. She clawed free of him then she turned and heaved the ruby at his forehead. She missed, but it didn’t matter. The guy clapped a hand over his left eye where the stone had nailed him.

He took a sharp step backward. Fox put his head down and dove at him.

She’d thrown her Rose. What the hell had she still been doing with the Rose? Fox caught the man in the solar plexus and drove him to the ground. She’d thrown away her ruby. He smashed a fist down into the man’s face. The guy had never recovered from the first blow Tara had given him and he couldn’t react now.

Fox’s thoughts kept staggering. They thought it was a forgery, but what if it wasn’t?

She’d done it to save him.

“Glove compartment,” he grunted, still struggling with the guy. “There are handcuffs in my glove compartment!”

Tara scrambled for them. A moment later, he had them in his hand. He snapped them on the guy and dragged him to this feet.

Tara swayed a little as adrenaline washed out of her and her legs folded. She leaned against his car. “What did I just do?”

She looked like she was going to pass out. How much more could she take? Fox wondered. He let go of the guy. Woozy, the man fell. He caught Tara and dragged her close to his chest.

“It wasn’t the real ruby,” he said. Please, God, don’t let it have been the real one.

“It’s gone.”

“I think it hit the gutter. Someone can probably retrieve it.” If water wasn’t running through. It had snowed here last night, too, and there was some melt-off. “Hold on to me here, darlin’. I need to make a phone call.”

He pulled the cell phone from his pocket and called the Boston cops. Again.

“What the hell was she doing with the ruby?” shouted the Boston lieutenant in charge of the matter. They were at the nearest precinct. The guy in the black trenchcoat was in an interrogation room. “That thing is evidence!”

Tara flinched. “No one asked me for it, so I just kept it.” She was sitting at a desk in the detective’s squad room and Fox sat on the edge.

Fox rubbed his jaw. “Sorry,” he said to the lieutenant. “She does things like this sometimes. Now can we move on to that guy in the room over there? I’d like to ask him a few questions.”

The lieutenant was understandably miffed at the commotion they’d caused in his territory on Christmas night. “I want a call-back from Philly first. You need to be vouched for.”

“You’ve got my badge and the statements from the officers at the first scene.” Fox stood.

Tara watched him and felt something warm coast through her, bringing her back to life. The Southern charm was gone now. Here was a man who wasn’t going to take no for an answer. “Can I listen in?”

“No,” both of them said simultaneously. They started in the direction of the interrogation room and Fox looked over his shoulder at her. “My way,” he reminded her.

Tara sat back in her chair again with a glare. Then she sighed and got to her feet to start pacing.

She found a coffee machine against one wall and shoveled spare change into it. In return she received something that tasted like warm bathwater. She grimaced and tossed it into a trash can, liquid and all.

She looked at the door Fox had disappeared through and out of nowhere she felt tears fill her eyes.

She pressed a hand to her mouth. For a moment, just a breath of space in time, she’d dared to dream. The Rose would be back in her possession by the end of the night. She’d have the single thing she wished for, her heart’s dearest desire.

But the Rose was gone. It was still lost to her. And the man in the interrogation room would almost surely provide them with the last answers regarding what had happened to Stephen. And then what? Fox Whittington would be gone as well. No promises. She knew what that meant now. She wasn’t three anymore.

She knew the kind of man he was. It was one of the reasons she’d fallen in love with him. He would always be there for her if she needed him, if she ever called on him as a friend. But she wanted more.

She wanted him to love her. It was what she would have wished for if she would have found the Rose. All her life she’d wanted someone she could believe in and now he’d come into her world. Her heart’s desire would have been that he wanted to stay there.

She’d thought she knew what loneliness was. She had never understood that it was a blade that could cut the soul wide open. Maybe, she thought, it only got that sharp after you’d been joined with someone only to lose him, to find yourself alone again.

Fox opened the interrogation room door. He had his cell phone to his ear. When he saw her, something about her expression must have betrayed her heart. He disconnected, dropped the phone on a desk, and came toward her fast. “Easy,” he said softly.

“Is it over?”

“I’m waiting for Rafe to call back, but…yes.”

“What? What did you find out?” Let him think this was all about Stephen, about the Rose, she thought desperately, because her eyes still burned with tears she refused to cry. Let him never know that her heart was breaking over him.

“This character works for a gemologist in Philadelphia,” he said. “He cut a deal with us and gave her name. But all he really knows is that she sent him to Carmen’s house the night he died to get the real ruby back and he found you there instead, creeping out the back door. They thought you took the Rose because Acosta left it behind. Rafe is going to pick up the woman in Philadelphia for questioning. Come on,” he said suddenly. “You look ready to drop. I’m taking you home.”

“Home is five hours away.” Please, she thought, let me have one more night. It was weak and needy and everything else she despised being. But she could not let him go without one last touch.

“So we’ll stay in Boston until morning.”

They found a motel two blocks from the precinct. It wasn’t the Marsdens’ apartment. It wasn’t even on a scale with hers. But they were both exhausted and when she pointed mutely to the place, Fox turned into the lot and they got a room.

The carpeting was ruby red and the bedspread was royal blue. Someone who’d really liked seascapes had had a heavy hand with the decorating. There were four separate prints on the narrow walls, all of them inducing some level of seasickness.

Tara didn’t care. She sank down on the bed and toed her shoes off. “You can’t say it’s been boring knowing me.” She meant to joke, meant to keep it light, but her voice cracked a little.

He leaned over to kiss her on the forehead. “Knowing you,” he replied quietly, “has not been anything like what I expected.”

What did that mean? Tara looked at him quickly as he went into the bathroom without saying anything more.

A moment later, she heard the shower begin running, then he was back, standing in the door, his arms crossed over his chest. He wore a towel around his waist. In the way of cheap motel rooms, there was not a great deal of the towel. All her pulse points began kicking, one after the other, a chain reaction.

“Am I supposed to get so worked up over the sight of you that I start ripping my own clothes off and jump into your arms?” But her voice was still hoarse.

He grinned. “Is it working?”

“Uh…yes. Now that you mention it.”

He laughed and held out his arms to her.

Tara stood from the bed and whipped her sweater over her head. That was as far as she got before he crossed the room and caught her. His mouth came down hard on hers. He had that delightful way, she thought, of tilting his head so she didn’t have to strain her neck back to join her mouth with his.

Always taking a care with her. She felt a new, strong urge to weep.

But not while his hands were sliding over her skin, not while his mouth moved to the swell of her breasts again, then over her collarbone. Not while he toyed with the snap at the waist of her jeans.

“How could you do that?” he murmured against her mouth. “You couldn’t know for sure that stone was fake.”

“That’s why I kept it. In case I was wrong. Fox, I really, really wanted that ruby to be real.”

“You threw it away.”

“I decided I wanted you more.”

Nothing in his life could have prepared him for what happened to him with her words. His stomach floated and found its way into his throat. His heart flipped over. That, he thought, just might make him the luckiest man alive.

“Will you stop this?” she protested when he lifted her in his arms again. This time he carried her into the bathroom.

“Whatever you want.” He deposited her in the shower. Jeans and all.

She didn’t have the Rose. She didn’t even have the paste ruby. But when he threw the towel aside and stepped in after her, when he nuzzled that spot behind her ear, for that moment Tara had everything she wanted.

She could do nothing but drive her hands into his hair and hold on while his lips teased over her breasts and down her tummy to the stubborn snap of her sodden jeans. This time he popped it free. And as wet as they were, somehow he managed to get them off her in the time it took to make a wish.

“I’m good.”

“Oh, yes.” She laughed shakily. Then his mouth found her through the thin fabric of her panties and Tara groaned, tilting her head back until it hit against the tiles of the shower stall.

“Let me love you,” she heard him say. Or maybe it was her own heart. Her legs threatened to give out.

Hot water pelted down on her face until she wasn’t sure which was the shower water and which were her tears. A long time later, he caught her in his arms when her knees would finally have bent. He slipped into her and everything inside her tightened again, ready, hungry. His mouth found hers again as she tightened around him and they went over the edge together.

She had no memory of getting back to the bed, but she knew they must have slept. Tara stirred beside him a long time later, the small of her back aching a little, her thigh muscles feeling tingly and sore, when his cell phone rang. She lifted her head to look at the bedside clock as she considered again how blissful it was to wake feeling this way…spent and exhausted, invigorated and full.

“Fox Whittington,” he said into the phone.

She rolled onto her back to look up at him. The most likely person to call him on his cell phone would be Rafe Montiel.

She watched Fox’s face change, clearing then frowning. He didn’t say much but he stayed on the line for twenty minutes. Tara shifted and curled against him. Finally, she could stand it no more. She sat up.

“What?” she whispered.

He disconnected and laid the phone on the covers. “Come here.” He put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer. “The gemologist’s name is Celia Davenport and Rafe has been hammering at her since…well, since about the time we arrived here.”

“On Christmas night? His wife…”

“Kate met Rafe under the worst of circumstances. And she’s the forgiving sort.”

“How did her pudding fare?”

“I didn’t ask.”

She realized she was swaying the conversation, holding the last facts at bay because…because once she knew them, once all the pieces clicked into place, the whole reason they were together would be over.

“Celia Davenport talked, too. She gave up Acosta. Honor among thieves.” Fox rested his cheek on the crown of her head. “I was right. She says Carmen had the Rose copied in case the court ruled against him. But in order to have it made—and Celia made it—he had to let her in on what he was doing. One look at your Rose and she knew what it was. She wasn’t willing to make the copy for a mere fee. She wanted a cut of the profits.”

“What profits? They couldn’t possibly sell two of them without arousing suspicion!”

“They were going to give the fake back to you and cut the real one down.”

Cut it down. Her stomach heaved. “Twenty-four carats. It was twenty-four carats.” No. Not Tzigane’s Rose. “Is that…is that where it is, what happened to it?”

It would make ten, twelve, fifteen very nice settings, Fox thought. The truth was, since it had vanished into thin air, it seemed likely. “I don’t know, darlin’. I just don’t know. Petro Acosta was the liaison between Carmen and Celia. He was the one who held all your stepbrother’s gambling chits. Stephen promised he could pay him off with the proceeds from the Rose, plus some for his patience, so Acosta put him in touch with Celia. Celia says that when the court legitimately awarded Carmen the ruby, the three of them decided they could sell the same stone twice. They would pass the fake off as the real thing and sell it in one piece while they cut the real one down. Then you called that night and offered to buy the real one yourself.”

Tara turned and buried her face against his chest. “I told Stephen that Charlie was involved and that he wanted to put the Rose in the museum.”

“Charlie?” The man in her date book, Fox remembered. Her date at the Four Seasons. He wasn’t prepared for the way the mere name twisted his gut now, so many weeks later. Who the hell was the guy?

“Charlie Branigan,” she said. “My mother tossed him over for Scott Carmen. When she got the Rose, she wanted security more than love. I always thought she made a mistake. Charlie’s a love. Eccentric but dear. Anyway, Scott Carmen was her heart’s desire, not Charlie.”

His insides unraveled. Slowly. “He was involved in all this?”

“He’s the major benefactor behind the Hoyt Museum. I told you I was pretty much out of money. He was going to help me buy the ruby back from Stephen and we were going to put it on display there. But someone at the Hoyt would have authenticated it. Stephen had to have known that. He’d known he’d have to sell me the real one if that was what I was going to do with it.”

“Your stepbrother was not a good person, Tara.”

She closed her eyes and pressed her face to his chest. “I know.”

“Celia said he turned on them. He was going to sell the real stone to you that night and cut out on her and Acosta—after all, there’d be nothing left to sell. They couldn’t cut down paste. He was going to skip town with whatever you paid him and start over somewhere else without divvying anything up with his partners. But he slipped up and mentioned something to Acosta about you coming over at seven. Acosta put two and two together and got there at five-thirty. He told Celia both rocks were on the desk. They argued about Carmen’s intentions and Acosta grabbed them. Carmen went after him with the fireplace poker and Acosta managed to get the thing away from him but the real Rose went flying in the scuffle. Acosta ended up killing your stepbrother—an accident, Celia says—and he panicked. He fled with the ruby he still held.”

“Then he went to Celia,” she guessed hollowly. “With the fake.”

“She took one look at the ruby he had and knew it was the wrong one. She’d made it, after all. She sent Ernie Johnson—the guy who’s been tailing you—back to Carmen’s house. He saw you creeping out and you know the rest. By the time everyone cleared off the premises and he went inside, the Rose was gone. They thought you had it.”

“I would have if not for the dog.”

There was no way he could fix that for her. There was no way he could make it right. And it made something burn in his chest.

Dawn was inching in the windows, a pearly pink stealing under the drapes, when he finally asked. “If it had turned out differently, if you hadn’t lost it that night, what would you have wished for? You never did tell me your heart’s desire.”

Tara closed her eyes. She couldn’t tell him. She couldn’t stand to see the discomfort—or worse yet, the pity—in his eyes because he could not reciprocate her feelings. “You never told me what the C stands for, either,” she murmured, “so I guess we’re even.”

What had he wanted her to say? He’d wanted her to give when she’d never learned how to because everything had always been taken from her. He steeled himself against the disappointment, but it hurt.

“Chamuel,” he said quietly.

“What?”

“That’s my name. Chamuel Fox Whittington.”

She choked. “No wonder you just use the C.”

He gave a low, pained chuckle. “Go back to sleep. We’ve got a few hours yet before we have to leave.”

Tara rolled over and found his mouth again instead. They were still her hours. He was here on her case. And she’d use them as she damned well pleased.

Chapter 19

Halfway home, they received word that Acosta had been detained outside an airport in Pittsburgh, trying to outrun two murder charges. After that, the drive seemed long and quiet and empty without the dog.

“She was a little off from the start, you know,” Tara said finally.

Fox slanted her a look. “Who?”

“Belle. Remember that first day she turned up at headquarters and I chased her down the hall? She got back to the R-H unit without passing me. That was weird.”

“Maybe you were just distracted by my good looks and charming smile.”

She’d been distracted, Tara admitted, but not by that. She remembered how he’d protected her during that interview. Then her brows drew together in a frown and she looked more closely at Fox. He was shifting his weight uncomfortably in the driver’s seat. “What’s wrong?”

He shrugged. “I mentioned her disappearing act to Rafe last night.”

“And?”

“He says she was definitely the same pooch he and Kate ended up toting around last summer when he met her.”

“Well, it was obvious she knew him from somewhere.”

“Kate was a witness in a murder case. Belle sort of landed in the middle of that crime scene the same way she did with you.”

Tara’s eyes narrowed. “What else did Rafe say?” There was more, she thought. He still looked discomfitted. “And why didn’t he tell us this sooner?”

“He didn’t think we’d believe him until after she pulled her vanishing act on us, too.”

“She did it to them?”

“She disappeared out of Rafe’s townhouse and it was locked up tight.”

“Then she just decided she’d pay a visit to Stephen six months or so later? No way.”

“Well, she did. If you maintain that she was the mutt in the library that night then that’s exactly what she did.”

“So what are you saying? She’s some kind of…of ghost dog? Some supernatural being?”

“Actually, Kate and her friend Shawnalee think she’s an angel.”

Tara let her jaw drop, then she laughed. “Well, then, God certainly has a sense of humor.”

Fox gave a sheepish smile. “You’ve got to admit no real dog could have gotten out of this car the way she did.”

She couldn’t argue with that, Tara thought. But still…

“She saved Shawnalee’s life,” Fox said. “She saved Kate’s life. And she saved yours in that elevator.”

“So that’s her mission? To save women who have the misfortune of stumbling headfirst into murder cases through no fault of their own?”

There was more to it than that, Fox thought. How had Rafe put it? Love, murder and mayhem follow that pup wherever she goes. They’d had murder, Fox thought, and there had been plenty of mayhem these last two weeks. And he was in love with her. So what was he supposed to do about that?

When he’d asked her this morning about her heart’s desire, giving her the perfect chance to say something—anything—that he could have used as a guidepost, she’d evaded his question. Which was, he thought, an answer in itself.

They were nearing her neighborhood, but he wasn’t ready to let her go. “Why don’t you stay at my place again tonight?”

Her heart tripped. And she yearned. “Why?”

He thought fast. “Because your apartment’s still torn up from one end to the other. We can head over there first thing in the morning and have a full day to set it back to rights. It’s already four o’clock now.”

Something unbearably sad shimmied through her. Tara felt the hurt like the air she breathed. She closed her eyes against it.

He hadn’t suggested that she go with him because he wanted her there, because something magic had happened between them during their hunt for the Rose and he didn’t want it to end. He’d suggested it because he was just taking care of her…again. Still.

“I want to go home.”

It wasn’t what he expected to hear. Fox looked at her quizzically.

“Take me home. Please. I just want to go home.” She could have reached over and slapped him, Tara thought, and she doubted if his expression would be any more surprised. From the beginning, he hadn’t taken it well when she’d fought back against his gallant and gentlemanly efforts to shield her.

She watched his face and fury poured into her blood so suddenly and so hotly, she jerked with the force of it. How dare he? She thought of the apartment she was about to go back to, all ripped and ruined and upended, just like her life. All she had left were a bunch of messy, jagged pieces that had once formed something she’d held dear…her independence, her clean, unencumbered world where nothing got so close to her anymore as to hurt her. She’d had that—and he had shattered it.

Now she couldn’t figure out how to get all the pieces of herself put back together again. She’d always been strong. She knew her way through the dark. She’d never needed anybody!

Until him. So now what? Now what? He’d given her just enough to make her need, and now he wouldn’t—couldn’t—give her what she needed.

By the time he stopped the Mustang in front of her apartment building, Tara was trembling hard.

“Damn it,” he said quietly, but with a bite. “Look at you. You’re not ready to face that mess upstairs again after everything you’ve been through.”

“Stop it! Stop taking care of me!” She couldn’t stand it, Tara thought, not for another moment, not for another breath. There was nothing behind it but his natural inclination to be kind. She pushed his hand away frantically when he reached for her, then gathered what tattered dignity she had left.

She got out of the car quickly and reached into the back seat for her bag. “Thanks for everything.” If her voice cracked at the end, if it wasn’t flippant or cool or any of the things it might have been before all this had started, before he’d come into her life, then she just pretended she didn’t notice it. “That apartment you got us was fantastic. The tub was a real once-in-a-lifetime experience.”

“I wouldn’t know. I never got the chance to use it. You stole a page from Acosta’s calendar and had us running pell-mell to Boston.”

She waved a hand. “But it all worked out fine, didn’t it? You’ll call me if anything else comes up, right? Like a lead on the ruby?”

“Of course I’ll call you.”

“Well, then. Got to go.” Before I fall apart. Tara slammed the car door hard.

She would not run. But by the time Tara walked into her lobby, the tears that had been burning her eyes splashed over. Something painfully hard and hot was stuck in her throat and she couldn’t swallow. She grabbed her anger again and held onto it fiercely. And by the time she got to her apartment, it had managed to take over.

Damn him! Tara stabbed her key into the lock, then she grabbed the handle and turned it angrily. She stepped inside and looked around. Stay mad, she warned herself. She had to keep up this fury in her blood, had to block everything else out until some hour, some day, when maybe, just maybe, she could stand it.

She took her jacket off and hung it in the closet. She dropped her bag on the bedroom floor. She’d have this place liveable in two hours, she decided. Only a slow-talking, hot-eyed Southerner would think it would take all day.

She started in the kitchen. The sight of her faux fur coat still trapped half in the trash chute stoked her temper all over again. She grabbed that first, yanking hard.

And something flew out of its folds.

After everything she’d been through, Tara was gun shy. She cried out and ducked instinctively but it still hit her in the cheek and it stung. She clapped a hand there…then she heard the soft ting of whatever it had been hitting the metal of an overturned pot.

She jerked around. Whatever had hit her had been warm. And, she was almost sure, it had been red. She’d caught only that first surprising glimpse of it as it had shot toward her…but it had been red!

Her Rose? In her coat?

It was no more inexplicable than disappearing dogs. Tara’s heart began thudding as she dropped to her knees. She ran crazed hands through the rubble on the floor. She found it nestled in a spill of broken glass.

Her Rose.

She sat hard on the floor with both hands wrapped around the stone and everything she’d been trying not to feel reared up. All of the fear and the laughter, his warm kisses and the cold touch of steel at her throat. Everything that had happened in the last two weeks hit her in a wave and pummeled her. And now, somehow, incredibly she had her ruby back. It was too much. She thought she could feel its heart pulse in her hands. Tara finally let herself cry.

You never told me about your heart’s desire. She’d had it, for hours and days that had been sweeter than she could bear, Tara thought. Then she’d lost it.

If you did have it, what would you wish for? She’d wish for what she had ached for all her life, what she’d finally found in the arms of a single man. Someone she could finally trust.

But he was gone. No matter how tightly she held the Rose, no matter how much she wished, the rooms of her apartment stayed cold and empty and shattered. Maybe the Rose’s legend was only that, she thought, a legend, a tale, a story, nothing more.

Full dark had fallen when she finally got to her feet, spent and stiff, and made her way into her bedroom alone. She dropped onto the bed, exhausted, feeling broken. She realized she didn’t have the heart for fixing the place up tonight after all.

“And you just let her go?” Kate cried, horrified. “That’s not the way it’s supposed to be. No, no, no!”

Rafe glared at Fox. “Damn it, look what you’ve done. You’re going to send her into premature labor or something.”

Fox rubbed a tired hand over his jaw. They were in the Montiels’ living room. He’d gone home and found he couldn’t stay there. He was restless. He was hurt.

She had left him. Just…left him when it was all over.

He watched Kate pacing back and forth in front of the coffee table. “That’s an old wives’ tale,” he muttered. “You can’t upset a woman into going into labor.”

“I forgot,” Rafe said caustically. “You know everything about pregnancy. But I’ll tell you one thing, pal. You know zip about women.”

Fox stood. “I’m going home.”

“Idiot.”

He jerked around again to look at his partner. “You know, you’re getting real close to stepping over a line here.” Then a sudden, hot headache kicked him right between the eyes. The dog was in Rafe’s lap. The Chihuahua. Belle?

Her little black eyes were narrowed and she was growling at him. Fox rubbed his eyes. The dog was gone.

He was hallucinating. He was exhausted.

“You didn’t learn a thing from four sisters, did you?” Rafe challenged.

Fox was getting genuinely angry. “What, you’re some kind of expert Don Juan all of a sudden?”

“I’m happily married. You, on the other hand, are about to go home and sleep alone. You had Tara all figured out, didn’t you, except when it really mattered.”

Fox held up both hands. “That’s it. I’m going to leave before you say something that’s going to make me want to hit you.”

Rafe and Kate watched him go. “Is he going to be all right?” Kate asked worriedly.

“Sure. We were.”

“But maybe…I don’t know. Maybe we were wrong. Maybe this wasn’t one of Belle’s love matches.” Then her eyes widened. “I know how to find out.”

“You’re not going to start with that archangel thing again.” Rafe’s eyes went wary.

“Gabriel…Raphael,” Kate mused. “Belle has a definite preference for men named after angels.”

“I never heard of an angel named Fox.”

“Well, the C has to stand for something.” Kate hurried to the door.

Fox saw her yank it open and step out onto the porch just as he finished backing out of their driveway. He hit the brakes and lowered his window. “What?”

“What does the C in your name stand for?” she called.

Something inside his head snapped with a loud twanging sound. “Chamuel, damn it! It stands for Chamuel!”

Kate’s jaw dropped open. “What kind of name is that?”

“It was an angel or some such thing. My mother was in a car accident while she was pregnant with me. She said she had one sitting on her shoulder!”

Kate grinned and nodded.

“Is that it?” Fox growled. “Can I go home now?”

“Sure. Absolutely. Go right ahead. Have a good night!” She turned back to her husband, just inside the door, and smiled. “He’s going to her apartment.”

Fox was past the college and nearly home before he saw something very small and brown and fast dart across the street in front of him. The Chihuahua? He stepped on the brake hard, looking the way he thought the dog had gone, his jaw slack. And in the same instant, Rafe’s parting shot finally hit him in the gut.

You had Tara all figured out, didn’t you, except when it really mattered.

Fox brought his gaze back to the street ahead of him. What the hell had he done?

She’d thrown her ruby away to save his life. She’d opened her arms to him and had let him in like she had done with no other man. And when she’d asked him why he wanted her to come to his place tonight, he’d told her it would be more comfortable, more convenient.

She ran, always ran, from hurt. Cool, clever, cosmopolitan, no one watching her would ever know. She tossed that hair back and narrowed her eyes. Just like she had done four hours ago when she’d gotten out of his car.

Fox turned the Mustang around. He drove back to Poplar and flashed his badge at the concerned doorman again. Then he took the elevator upstairs and went to her door, hammering it hard.

Tara was curled on her side, the ruby still in her hand, when she woke. She sat up, disoriented and confused by the steady thumping. She’d been dreaming of the time he’d woken her because he’d thought she would go to the art gallery.

She scraped her hair out of her face as she had that night…and then she knew she wasn’t dreaming. Someone was whaling the hell out of her door. And she knew, with a kick in her chest and a sudden loss of her breath, that it was him again. It was Fox. Which was fine, because she had a few more things to say to him after all.

Tara jumped from bed and ran into the other room, rapping her shin solidly against the leaning hulk of a coffee table. She swore and limped to the door, flinging it open. “Let’s get one thing straight here, okay? I took perfectly good care of myself for twenty-seven years before you came along!”

He had just raised his hand to knock again. He lowered it slowly. His eyes, she thought, were the most incredible blue.

“Come home with me,” he said softly.

Tara’s heart rolled over. “I can get through one night in this disaster area before I call in a clean-up crew in the morning. I don’t need your help.”

“Please.”

The single word somehow got inside her and wrapped around her heart. “I don’t need you to chase away monsters in the night or…or make me tea with brandy and…and hold me when I hurt!”

“Forever.”

“What?”

He leaned one easy shoulder against her doorjamb, unperturbed by her outburst. “You’re strong. You’re courageous. You’re no hothouse flower. I need you in my life.”

“Don’t do this.”

That was another thing she said a lot when the feelings were bubbling up inside her, he thought. “Your only weakness, as far as I can tell, is that you can’t recognize a man in love with you when you see one.”

“I…you…oh.”

This, Fox thought, was definitely going better the second time around. “I want you to come home with me tonight and to stay there. Not so I can take care of you—though I will. I mean, you’ve got to give me that, darlin’. It’s in my blood. But I really want you there so I can grow old with you, so I can go to sleep with you in my arms and wake up with you in the morning.”

Her mind was whirling. “And feed me eggs.”

“After I carry you to the kitchen table. There again, it’s a genes thing.” He reached for her and this time she didn’t push him away. He framed her face in his hands. “You drive my blood pressure up but I can’t go back to a world without you in it. So…please, come home.”

His eyes were taking on that devil’s blue again, she thought.

“There will be coffee there in the morning,” he promised.

She was going to cry again. Just when she’d thought she had no more tears to spend. “That’s…bribery.”

“Yes.” Then he waited. And he thought it might well have been the longest heartbeat of his life.

“I love you,” she whispered, then she threw herself into his arms.

Shaken, he caught her. “I love you, too, darlin’. That’s what I’ve been trying to say. Marry me.”

“Yes!” She threw her arms around his neck and hit him squarely in the back of the head with something hard.

“What the hell?” He set her away from him gently to rub at the spot.

“Oh!” She opened her palm.

Fox stared. And for a wild moment he thought he saw something move inside the stone, a deeper crimson inside the red, like a heart beating. Then he blinked and it was just a ruby—a magnificent ruby—after all.

“Where did it come from?” he asked, dumbfounded.

“An angel. It had to be an angel. That’s all I can figure. There was someone else in Stephen’s house that night.”

He thought about it and figured it out. “The dog?”

“She must have picked it up in her mouth when I took off. What I can’t figure out is why she put it in my coat.” She closed her fist around it again. “It was in my coat, the one she was trying to destroy the day that guy got me in the elevator. I have it back. And I have my deepest wish.”

“Tell me.” His eyes narrowed. “I coughed up what the C meant. Fair’s fair, darlin’. What’s your heart’s desire?”

“You.”

Twenty minutes later, they waited for the elevator. Fox dropped her bags—three this time—and pushed the button, then he pulled her into his arms. And over her shoulder, he thought he saw the leaves move in a potted plant in the hallway. He thought he saw…a long brown nose poke through the fronds.

The elevator came and he picked up Tara’s bags again. He stepped into the car, looking back once.

“What is it?” Tara asked, concerned by the expression on his face.

Fox hesitated then shook his head. “I thought I saw the dog again. I must be really tired.”

The elevator doors closed and they went down. Tara frowned. “You never did finish telling me why Rafe’s wife thinks Belle’s an angel.”

“Because love, murder and mayhem follow her wherever she goes.”

“Murder and mayhem hardly seem like the work of heaven, but…” She looked down at the ruby still clutched in her hand. She still wasn’t quite willing to put it away. Then she looked up at him quickly. “The love was my heart’s desire. It was the work of the Rose.”

“Sure. Kate’s goofy.” Fox found he was much more inclined to believe in mystical rocks than heavensent dogs. And he didn’t care why it had happened…as long as he’d found her.

On the seventh floor, Belle yawned hugely and stepped out from behind the fern. Now that she’d given the ruby back, she had a mind for some sleep herself. She’d only kept it long enough to allow for divine intervention. If she’d given the rock back too soon, Tara and Fox would have parted ways before they realized they were in love.

ISBN: 978-1-4592-0507-9

OUT OF NOWHERE

Copyright © 2001 by Beverly Bird

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[*]Wounded Warriors

†The Wedding Ring