2000 Kisses (6 page)

Tess stared at the phone. “It's a little late for that, Andrew. I, uh, bought a few things this morning.”

“How few?”

Tess did a quick mental calculation. The number was higher than she'd realized. “Not quite sixty-five.”

“Hundred?”

Tess swallowed. “Thousand.”

“What did you do, put a down payment on an apartment building?”

“I bought a car actually. A Mercedes convertible— and a few other things. I'm not a spendthrift,” Tess said defensively. “I had a huge bonus coming. Richard told me that flat-out.”

“But he didn't tell you the exact figure?”

“No. You know how he can be. He loves playing boss. It's a control thing they taught him at Wharton. Maximize output by decreasing worker complacency.”

“Look, just sit tight.” Andrew spoke tensely. “I'll call you right back. It's probably nothing, but with an amount that size it doesn't pay to take chances.”

It doesn't pay to take chances
.

Tess rubbed the knot in her neck, watching snow gust over the trees. What had her brother meant by that?

She paced anxiously until Andrew called back a half hour later.

“Tess.” Her brother sounded tired. “I want you to listen
very
carefully.” His voice hardened. “I've checked all the activity reports for your bank, and nothing has been entered for your account. That alone is suspicious. I also find it odd that no one else has reported that amount of money missing.” He hesitated. “Of course it
could
be a simple electronic oversight, or a mistake in the general ledgers. On the other hand, it could be something else.”

Tess stared at the phone. “What kind of something else?”

“These might be the kind of people who would find it unhealthy to have dealings with the authorities.”

“You mean because they're criminals?”

“It's possible. If so, you could be in danger, Tess. Whatever you do, don't touch another penny of that money until I have some answers. I don't want to give these people any way to track you.”

“Track
me? You think they'd do that?” Uneasiness veered into panic.

Andrew O'Mara cursed softly. “Listen, I have a bad feeling about all this. I think you should go away for a few weeks while I run a check on the source.”

“Go away where?”

“Someplace isolated. I want you to start packing. Meanwhile, don't tell
anyone
that you're leaving, not even your friends.”

“I don't believe you're actually telling me to go somewhere and hide.” Tess laughed tightly, but Andrew didn't laugh back. “Andrew?” Her voice was shaky. “You're joking, right?”

His silence was worse than any answer he could have
given her. Then he bit back an oath. “I'm not joking, Tess. We've had a few other reports like this, and there may be a pattern here. Until I'm sure, I want to know that you're safe.”

“Andrew, don't be ridiculous! I can't go away for a few weeks. I have a new chocolate account I have to get started on …” Then Tess's legs started to shake. Her brother would never joke about her safety. He might be overcautious, but the work he did gave him good reason to be.

Tess sank down into a chair by the phone. “What kind of place did you have in mind?”

“Someplace quiet. I know a spot that's way off the beaten track. An old friend of mine happens to be sheriff there, so it will be perfect. And I want you to leave
now,”
he added.

“Now, like tonight?”

“Now, like this minute,” her brother growled.

Tess frowned. “I'll never be able to get a plane ticket on such short notice.”

“Forget flying. I want you to get in that new car you just bought and drive.”

“Andrew, you're starting to scare me.”

“Good. I don't want you to stop being scared until you reach Almost.”

“Where?”

“Almost. That's the name of the town in Arizona.”

Arizona.

Something nagged at Tess's mind, and she glanced down at the scattered brochures from the travel agency. On the top of the pile was a picture of jagged granite cliffs beneath a blinding blue sky. Caught in shadows was a dark outline of ancient masonry walls and jagged wood roof beams.

Tess stood frozen. There was something familiar about the place. She could almost hear the wind whisper through the cottonwood and mesquite trees, as if she had walked that rocky path and touched those walls of burning stone before.

Tess shook her head, irritated. Of course the scene felt familiar. She had seen a thousand shots like that in the epic westerns she'd devoured since she was a brat in pigtails. She had cut her eyeteeth on
The Searchers, Fort Apache
, and
Broken Arrow.
She could recite all the good lines from
Santa Fe Trail
by heart. So what? That was no reason to get swept up in some ridiculous flight of fancy.

Swallowing hard, Tess shoved the brochure back into a pile with all the others.

“Tess, are you there?”

“I'm all ears, Andrew.”

“Okay, I want you to pack up, then hit the road. And for once,
don't
argue with me.”

Outside, snow played over the gleaming hood of the Mercedes. Tess was having trouble breathing. “Do you really believe I'm in danger, Andrew?”

“Let's just say I don't want to find out that you are. Now get your pen and I'll give you directions to Almost. I just heard there's a storm front rolling in from Canada, and it could dump two feet of snow before morning. I want you out of Boston before it hits.”

Feeling an oppressive sense of danger, Tess grabbed a pencil and started writing.

The temperature had dropped and snow was blowing harder by the time Tess finished packing the car. Suitcases and boxes filled the trunk. More boxes along with
books and shopping bags full of her new purchases covered the seats. She held a flashlight and three boxes of batteries, compliments of Mrs. Spinelli, who swore that Tess would need them sooner or later.

As she finished stowing the last bag, Tess caught a glimpse of herself in the rearview mirror. In her western-style suede jacket, she could have been a complete stranger. But there was something about that stranger Tess liked—the gleam in her eye, the flash of color in her cheeks, and the glint of her hair. She straightened up, her cowboy boots crunching on the dry, new-fallen snow, and took a final look around her.

The wind rose, scattering a flurry of flakes. Tess was intensely aware of her life as she stood in the snow, aware of this street, this building, this small corner of the harried world where she had lived for seven years. She wondered suddenly why it had never felt like home, only a place to stay.

All of her memories of this street seemed to be centered on work—fighting deadlines, battling stress, juggling pressures. Without planning to, she had traded in a real life for success. She had worked hard, planned well, and played by all the rules. But suddenly she didn't like those rules.

You can't have it all
, a college professor had once warned her.

Maybe not.

All Tess wanted was one small part for herself. Now she had to decide which part that was and how much she was willing to give up to claim it.

She slid behind the wheel and pulled out of the parking spot.

The road stretched before her, winding past wind-tossed pine trees and snow-streaked sidewalks. Somewhere
a tree branch shifted, cracking in the wind. She shivered, already feeling the pull of hot blue skies and burning red stone.

The dark pavement stretched out against the white drifts, caught in uncertain sunlight, beckoning her to an adventure like nothing else she had ever known.

With Damien's strange words ringing in her ears, Tess cranked up Andrea Bocelli and headed west.

W
hite clouds piled up on the jagged blue-gray spikes of the Chiricahuas. Dust whipped over the foothills to the east.

Wind picking up. Storm weather coming.

Just his luck.

T. J. McCall frowned at the electronic beep coming from somewhere in his dusty denim pocket.

Not the beeper. This time it was the cell phone.

He shifted the reins into one hand and soothed his bay gelding with the other, then dug for the phone.
“What?”
he snapped as wind whipped dust and twigs around his face.

“Is that all you've got to say to an old friend?”

The cowboy's mouth tightened, drawing lines into his deeply tanned face. “If this is a prank call, you're gonna be real sorry come sundown.”

“Prank call? You wound me.” Low laughter spilled over the line. “How soon they forget.”

“O'Mara? Damn, is that you?” McCall guided his quarter horse around a stand of prickly pear cactus and smiled.

“None other. How's life at the little house on the prairie?”

“Wrong state. Wrong century.” T.J. McCall shoved back his sweaty Stetson and eased past a dry wash bordered by treacherous slip rock. “Wrong ecosystem.”

“Says you. What's a cowboy know about ecosystems?”

“Hell of a lot more than a T-man from Georgetown.”

“You got a point there. What's all that noise?”

“That's not noise, it's cattle. Three hundred prime Brahman steers to be exact, not that you'd know the difference. It's time to move them down to pasture.”

“You really did leave it all behind, didn't you?” Andrew O' Mara was silent for a moment. Then he snorted.” “Can you still shoot a match out of a matchbook at two hundred feet?”

“Maybe. I gave up smoking so who knows?”

Andrew O'Mara hesitated. “Listen, I've got something for you, McCall. It's important.”

T.J. McCall stared at the ragged line of the mountains shimmeiing like smoke above the vast green floor of the Sonoran Desert. “Forget it, O'Mara. I'm out of the business.”

“No one as good as you were ever pulls out.”

“Wrong.”

“Anytime you want back in, Til make the call. You could have a Capitol assignment inside of a week. Probably Presidential in six months.”

The cowboy sat up straighter, the cell phone gripped in hard, work-worn Angers. “I said forget it, O'Mara.”

“Okay, I will. For now.” Andrew cursed softly. “Meanwhile, this is a favor, McCall. It's
personal”

“Say again.”

“You heard right.” Wind hissed, shaking the green clusters of a dense palo verde. T. J. McCall wiped a dusty bandanna over his sunburned forehead and frowned.

The silence held. Both men knew that a line had been crossed, all the normal fonnalities broken.
Personal
meant someone near and dear was in trouble.
Personal
was something you never refused, because next time you might be on the asking end.

Damn, why did it have to be personal!
T.J. thought in disgust.

“McCall? You still there?”

“Right here. I sure wish I wasn't.”

O'Mara took a long, harsh breath. “I don't like asking favors, but it's my baby sister. I think she's in trouble.”

“Drugs?”

“Tess? She gets high on two aspirins and a cold soda. No possible drug problems with her.” O'Mara chuckled grimly. “Not unless Starbucks coffee and Belgian chocolate have been upgraded to the controlled substances category.”

T.J. smiled, being the proud possessor of a fairly developed sweet tooth himself. “Alcohol abuse? Don't tell me it's some kind of man trouble.”

“No way. Tess's idea of a hot date is curling up with the latest issue of
The Wall Street Journal.
Everything's business with her.”

T.J.'s lips twitched. “Good to see someone in the O'Mara family has to work hard to make a living. All the same, I don't see how I can help you.” T.J. grabbed his battered Stetson as wind whipped down from the high ridges. His eyes narrowed as he studied the line of thunderheads gathering in the west.

“Just hear me out, McCall.”

The cowboy rocked back in his saddle to the squeak of well-oiled leather. “You'd better talk fast. I've got a storm system moving in and three hundred restless cows nudging my tail. Right now they don't look very happy. In a second this cell phone's going to fade out of range and you'll be stuck, since I'm not heading back to town until later in the day. Might be one or two days if this storm holds out.”