A Touch of Minx (10 page)

"I'm fairly spry, too." He grabbed the pillow away and swung it at her.

She blocked the blow with her arm, and climbed up on her knees to tackle him flat onto the bed. "Go to sleep!" she demanded, laughing as she pinned his shoulders.

Rick knocked her arms out from under her and spun them around so that she lay on her back looking up at him and his glittering blue eyes. Slowly he settled his weight down on her and kissed her again. "Do you think our kids would be as pretty as Tom's?"

"Prettier," she answered, sliding her arms around his shoulders. "They would have two good-looking parents. Livia, Mike, and Chris are just lucky they take after Katie and not Yale. Don't tell them I said that. Except for Donner. You can tell him."

"I think I'll save that for later." He slipped off of her and pulled her close until her back rested against his chest. "Do you ever think about it?"

"Oh, for crying out loud," she muttered, screwing her eyes shut. "Think about what?"

"About what our kids would look like. How many there would be, how many boys and how many girls. Things like that."

"I don't know. Sometimes I wonder, I guess." She tucked the sheets up under her chin. "Me and babies is scary. I never even babysat."

His fingers wrapped into hers. "You're working with Livia. You two seem to get along like a house afire."

"She's interesting. She thinks she's really wise, but she's so… innocent. You know what I mean?"

"I know what you mean. Maybe we should borrow a baby."

"Let's give Angelina Jolie a call. She's probably got some spares."

"I love you, Yank."

Finally he sounded sleepy. "I love you, Brit."

Richard felt Samantha in his arms relax and drift back to sleep. That had gone more smoothly than he'd expected. The idea of babies—of her having babies—had to scare her half to death. At least the thought had crossed her mind. At least she hadn't laughed at him and dismissed the notion.

Richard shook himself. He was getting way ahead of the matters at hand. The ring hadn't even been finished yet. And if he proposed and she turned him down, he had no idea what would happen. He wasn't losing her; he knew that. He persuaded people to do things all the time, so surely he could convince her that marrying him would be a good idea. A very good idea. The only idea he really wanted to contemplate.

He awoke to the sound of "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head" coming from Samantha's cell phone. "Sam?"

"Sorry," she yelled from the direction of the bathroom, over the sound of the shower. "Can you get it?"

Reaching across to her side of the bed and trying to ignore the dull pounding in his skull, Richard picked up the phone and flipped it open. "Hola, Walter," he said.

"Oh. Hi, Rick," the former fence's voice came. "Are you answering Sam's phone now?"

Richard narrowed his eyes. "She's in the shower."

"Still, does she know you're taking her private phone ca—"

"Yes," he interrupted sharply. "Is there something I can do for you?"

"I just wanted to let her know I won't be coming in to the office today. I have a couple of errands to run. She can reach me on my cell if she needs to get hold of me."

Glancing toward the half-open bathroom door, Richard slid to the edge of the bed. "All animosity aside, is everything well, Walter?"

"Yeah, yeah. Everything's fine."

"Is there some coded message I need to give Samantha to convince her that I'm not lying about that?" he pursued.

Barstone cleared his throat. "Just tell her the peas are boiling, and I'll give her a call tomorrow. And… tell her to be careful."

The line clicked dead. Slowly Richard snapped the phone closed again. Something was off—hinky, as Samantha would say—but he didn't know what, precisely. Walter Barstone did travel, but according to Sam not nearly as much as he had when he was on the job. Was he working again, fencing for someone other than Samantha?

God, he hoped not. Because she needed Walter in her life, and if the former fence was back in business, they would need to be separated. Which would make him the villain of the piece, he supposed, for looking out for her best interests. And his own, of course.

"That was Stoney, wasn't it?" she asked, walking into the room wearing nothing but a towel around her hair. "Did he finally look up that stupid information for me?"

Good glory. "He didn't say."

She bent down, toweling her hair off. "What did he say, then?"

"He'll be out of the office today, running some errands."

Samantha straightened again, her whole stance alert. "What kind of errands?"

"He didn't say." Richard held up a hand before she could interrupt with another question. "I'm supposed to tell you that the peas are boiling. And I expect you to tell me what the devil that means."

"It means they need salt," she said absently, pulling her blue bathrobe off the back of a chair and shrugging into it. "Shaking. He's trying to shake something loose."

That sounded better than Barstone accepting and redistributing stolen property again, anyway. "What's he trying to shake loose?"

"I don't know. I asked him to look for his file on Toombs, and I feel like he's been stonewalling me since then."

"He said you could reach him on his cell phone if you needed to," he offered.

"'That would make me a wuss. Dammit."

"He also said you should be careful."

Samantha stilled for a second. "That doesn't sound good. For him or for me."

"I think Walter can take care of himself, my love," Richard said, trying to untangle his left foot from the blankets. "I'm more worried about you. Why don't you come here and kiss me?"

She wrinkled her nose. "I'm squeaky clean and freshly brushed. You're morning-after-six-beers guy."

"Message understood," he returned with a grin, standing. "Shower and toothpaste. Are you staying for breakfast?"

Samantha looked at him for a long moment. "Sure."

He tilted his head at her. "What?"

"Just taking you in," she said with a smiling sigh. "You look good with that sexy crazy bed hair and the stubble. Does it feel like we've known each other for a year?"

Richard shook his head, feeling his heart beating all the way out to his fingertips. "Sometimes it feels like a day. That first day. Electric."

"Yeah. Electric. We do have the sparks, don't we?"

And the hills were alive with the sound of music. "We're an entire electrical storm."

Nothing made a bloke feel more satisfied and proud than knowing that the woman he loved, loved him. And to think when they'd first met, she hadn't trusted him enough to give him her last name. If he'd been a man with less patience, he would have given up in frustration months ago.

But he'd known immediately what he wanted, and luckily her own stubborn path had led her in the same direction.

As he came downstairs twenty minutes later, he hummed "Rule Britannia." That amusement stopped as the front bell rang. He paused on the landing while Reinaldo appeared to pull open the door. "Good morning, Detective," the housekeeper said, stepping back.

Homicide detective Frank Castillo of the Palm Beach Police Department sauntered into the foyer, looked up to see Rick, and gave a half wave. "Good morning, Rick. Is Sam around?"

Another thing his life had become since he'd met Samantha Elizabeth Jellicoe—chock full of surprises.

Tuesday, 8:25 a.m

Samantha shoveled strawberries and melon slices from the bowl on the sideboard and onto her plate. Toombs or the Picaults. However many suspects she named, it kept coming back to them. They'd all had enough money to afford it, both had been in New York sometime during the exhibit's six-week stop there, both resided on the East Coast, both collected Japanese antiquities. And at least as importantly, she knew Toombs had willingly acquired at least one piece of his collection illegally.

Maybe Stoney had a lead or a theory of his own, but whatever he was doing, he didn't seem to want to talk about it. And so she had to ask her own questions, do her own research. She had seven more days to find Yoritomo's armor. That, together with her social schedule—lunch today, the Toombs tour on Thursday, the Mallorey charity thing on Saturday, and the Picaults' dinner on Sunday—wasn't going to be easy. It was a good thing she liked a challenge.

"Samantha, you have a visitor," Rick said without preamble, entering the breakfast room.

She faced the door as he passed her, slowing to kiss her on the cheek. "Who is it?"

"Me," Detective Frank Castillo said, stopping in the doorway. "Surprise."

Her adrenaline went into overdrive, and she stood up. Even though they got along pretty well, even though she'd called him for help last night, seeing a cop in the house, in her territory, was just wrong. "Surprise, yourself," she said. "Is anybody I know dead or something?"

"Who am I now, the Grim Reaper?"

"I don't know; you tell me."

"Nobody's dead—that I know of."

"Good. Want some breakfast?"

"Sure."

As she retook her seat at the table, Frank walked over to the well-stocked sideboard and started selecting a mound of food. Apparently nobody else knew how to feed the guy. Rick chose scrambled eggs and toast, sitting to her right at the head of the table. "Do you know why he's here?" he mouthed, touching her fingers.

Samantha shook her head. "Well, maybe," she muttered, not wanting to tell—or get caught telling—a flat out lie.

Rick lifted an eyebrow. "'Maybe'?"

"Frank," she went on in a louder voice, "when I called you last night you said you'd get back to me in a couple of days. Did something happen?"

The detective sat across from her. "About two hours after you called, Gabriel Toombs ran a test on his estate alarm system,'" he said around a mouthful of waffle. "On every sensor. His alarm company had to notify the PD because we get an automated signal when the system activates."

"Two questions," Rick put in, waiting until he'd chewed and swallowed to speak. "What did you ask Frank about Toombs, and don't the larger estates test their alarms on a regular basis?"

Samantha snorted. She couldn't help herself. "They should test them, but they don't. Once that little green light goes on for the first time, most people figure they're invulnerable for life. You've always tested your system regularly, which at least makes you a challenge." She glanced at Frank's interested expression. Great, Sam. Incriminate yourself. "A challenge to bad people who might want to rob you, I mean."

"Toombs actually hasn't run a test in nearly five years," Castillo agreed. "After you mentioned his name, I checked for any current events stats on the PD computer. Your question was about whether Toombs or the Picaults had ever been suspected in any kind of theft, but this was something." He leaned forward on his elbows. "And since you know stuff, is there anything I should pass on to my friends in Robbery?"

"Man, I thought you were here to give me something useful, not to ask me for clues."

"Sam, you know something. Cough it up."

She spread her arms. "I don't. I'm doing some research into the whereabouts of some items that have been missing for three years past the statute of limitations. If you guys have anything on Toombs or the Picaults it might give me an idea where to look." Well, she had a pretty good idea, but he might be able to confirm it.

"You can't break in to steal something back," Frank said, his expression hardening.

"Ooh, thanks for the scoop, Frank. I don't do B and E's, remember? I'm just looking around for clues."

"Right."

Samantha straightened, looking the detective straight in the eye. "Are you accusing me of something? Do I need to call a lawyer?"

Frank blew out his breath. "No. Your methods might be… unorthodox, but you've helped me and the PD out of jams a couple of times. Just make sure you don't go past looking. Leave the rest to the cops and the lawyers."

"Don't worry about that," she said, answering without committing herself to anything. Always have a way out, Martin had always said. And she pretty much always did, for everything except her relationship with Rick.

"So that's it? You came by to tell me that Wild Bill Toombs tested his alarm system?"

"And I figured it was about breakfast time. A cop's got to eat."

"Eat all you want, as long as you promise to look into Toombs and the Picaults like you said you would."

"I will, I will. I promise. Could I get some coffee?"

Rick signaled Reinaldo at the edge of the room, and the housekeeper made a silent exit. The house had more than a dozen people working in and around it—chef, maids, driver, gardeners, pool maintenance, security, plumbers, electricians. But Samantha had noticed that she tended to have dealings with the same small group, and she thought that was probably on purpose. Rick wanted her to be comfortable, and he saw to it in ways that he'd never mention, and that most people would probably never notice. But she noticed. That was kind of her specialty, noticing things.

Speaking of noticing things… "Are you sure there's nothing else?' she pursued. "You could have told me all this over the phone, Danishes or not."

''You are a very persistent woman," Castillo grunted. "All I'm saying is that you're not the only party who's ever asked questions about Gabriel Toombs. He's shown up on a couple of suspect lists for thefts over the years, but nobody's officially accused him of anything. No evidence."

"You did do some digging already, you big tease," Samantha said with a grin. "Thefts from where?"

"I don't know, yet. FBI-sized. But suspected only. No proof. And you didn't hear that from me." He shoveled in another mouthful.

"Like I want anybody to know that I have breakfast with cops." She leaned forward on her elbows. "Is this anything that a robbery detective in New York, say, might know more about?"

"You mean that cop who arrested you in March? Sam Gorstein?"

"I was cleared of any wrongdoing, thank you very much," she said stiffly. Jeez, get nabbed once and nobody let you forget it. "Do you think Gorstein might be able to help me out?"

Castillo shrugged. "I can't speak for the NYPD. All I will say is that if the only thing you have to repay me for my information is breakfast and some help nine months ago, you don't have much to offer a guy in another state."

Except for the feeling that that guy might be a little sweet on her. She glanced at Rick, who'd been following the conversation but uncharacteristically staying pretty much out of it. "Well, I guess I'm stuck with you then, Frank," she said, sitting back again. "Anything else you can find out would be great."

"Yes, I know. If you weren't so helpful about boosting my arrest and conviction ratio, I'd probably be less inclined." Reinaldo appeared with a coffee carafe, and the detective paused to fill his cup and add way too much sugar for an ordinary citizen. Built-up cop immunity, she guessed. Finally he took a long swallow, closed his eyes, and smiled. "Now that is good coffee."

"It's a Brazilian-Jamaican hybrid," Rick finally contributed. "I'll send the station a couple of pounds of it."

"Well, you'll never be getting another speeding ticket." Snorting and obviously amused at his cop humor, Frank took another drink. "Hey, how's that pool garden going? I did offer that blue turtle my uncle painted for me, but I guess you went with the gnomes."

"I've been a little late getting started on it," Samantha answered, avoiding Rick's gaze. She had other things to take care of at the moment. Things a lot less scary and root bound. "I'm making out a list right now of plants I want to order."

"Cool. Invite me to the grand unveiling."

She forced a smile. "I will."

For the next twenty minutes they chatted about the differences between fall in Palm Beach, Florida, and Devonshire, England, until Frank finally finished eating and decided to head back to the station. Rick stood beside her just inside the front doorway as the detective and his brown, late-model Taurus rolled down the drive to the street.

"You called him last night?" Rick asked, as he closed the door again.

"Just looking for anything obvious. Viscanti's really worried about losing this exhibit to the Smithsonian. He's only got until next Wednesday to produce the armor."

"That really isn't your problem."

"I know, I know." It felt like it was, though. She hadn't known about the time constraints when she'd taken the job, but it was part of the gig now. If she couldn't deliver on time, then as far as she was concerned she'd blown the contract.

"When you go sightseeing at Wild Bill's on Thursday, take Aubrey with you."

"Aubrey? You're the one who didn't think he was manly enough to protect me during lunch at the Sailfish Club."

"You're not going alone, Samantha."

"Rick—"

"You can make this a fight if you want to, but I'm not giving in on something that just makes good sense."

She took a breath, holding back her irritation at being dictated to. She was in a partnership now, even at the moments when it would be handier to be flying solo, even when sometimes she wondered how long it would last— and so she needed to adjust her game plan accordingly. "Okay, okay. Sheesh. I'll ask him to come with me."

"If he can't join you, then reschedule for when I can."

"Toombs can't be all suave and macho and show his stuff off to a naive admirer when you're there."

"Then you'd best hope Aubrey can join you on Thursday."

Samantha stuck her tongue out at him. "Fine, tough guy." she said, heading for the garage and her car. "You'll have to remind me to call Patty next week and wish her a happy thirtieth birthday."

"You don't need to torture me with my ex-wife," he commented, following her. "This is about your safety."

"If I have to deal with the consequences of my past mistakes, bub, so do you. See you later."

"Have a nice lunch with Katie. By the by, I'm flying to New York. I'll be home tonight."

Her heart lurched, and she stopped midway to the Bent-ley. "When did this happen? Just now, because you're mad at me?"

"No, and I'm not mad at you. Apparently after I left Tom's office yesterday afternoon he got a call from Showier and DeWitt. That office building next to mine may be going up for sale. I want to take a closer look at it before I decide whether to make a bid, and I thought I'd meet with my staff there in Manhattan if I have time."

"Make time," she said, walking back up to him. "You have a perfectly nice townhouse in Manhattan."

With a half smile Rick slid an arm around her waist, pulling her up against him. "Yes, I recall it. We spent several weeks there this past spring."

"So don't think you have to rush there and be back in time to keep me out of trouble. That's not your job."

He looked like he wanted to argue with that, but she leaned up on her tiptoes and kissed him, fighting against her surprise that her first instinct had been to blow off the armor and anatomy model hunt and offer to go with him. Way to lose the killer instinct, Sam.

"My wanting to rush back isn't because I worry about you getting into trouble," he murmured, letting his fingers drift across her cheek in a way that made her shiver. "It's because I'm crazy about you, and I don't like to spend the night away from you."

"Keep talking like that and I'll let you have your way with me when you get back. Which will be tomorrow, so you don't have to rush through building inspections and meetings like a crazy man."

He smiled again, kissing her deep and hot and slow. "Okay. I'll call you this evening."

Samantha chuckled, pretending that she thought he was sappy and that she wasn't really thinking that he was the best thing that had happened to her in her entire life. "Okay," she whispered. "But no phone sex. I prefer the real thing."

"You and me both, Yank."

After Samantha left for the office, Richard called the Palm Beach airport to have his pilot push back their return flight to tomorrow. Then he phoned his New York office to confirm meetings, schedule another one for Wednesday morning, and let Wilder at the townhouse know he would be spending the night. He packed a small overnight bag and dropped some contracts that needed his review into a briefcase.

It was funny; if this had been four years earlier and his conversation had been with Patricia—if he'd remembered to tell her in person and not by phone call from the jet— she would have wanted to know whether he'd be back for the soiree at the Malloreys' and that would have been it. No heart-stopping kisses, no mention of nighttime phone calls or making love. And once he'd walked out the door he wouldn't have thought about her until he walked back into the house. God, how times—and he—had changed.