Free Falling (2 page)

Instantly, he recalled his wayward thoughts
and adopted the no-mercy attitude for which he was famous. “That’s
precisely my intention,” he stated. Mac turned to Woody. “Make
whatever preparations possible. I want this job started the moment
the police have removed”—he shot a look at the women draped around
the tree as he walked away—“these ladies from my property.”

Woody shrugged. “Whatever you say, Mr.
McFerrin.”

Mac leaned against the side of his house and
watched Woody back his rather large and noisy truck closer to the
unfortunate tree. The three women stood statue still. Mac glanced
at his watch and then down the street. Surely the police would
arrive soon and put an end to this nonsense. Several other
residents had wandered into their yards to watch the show.

Great. Bad publicity was about the last thing
he needed his first day in Huntsville. He blew out a puff of
frustrated air and sagged against the porch rail. He’d been under
the impression that all the residents on this street were much
older and certainly not inclined toward disturbing the peace. Maybe
this was his longtime friend and attorney, John Whitaker’s idea of
a joke. Buying this old house certainly hadn’t been Mac’s idea of a
wise investment. He hated old houses. John would think this entire
situation hilarious. Mac surveyed the threesome once more. He
didn’t find it a damned bit funny.

The police arrived. Mac straightened and
moved toward the cruiser that came to a stop in his drive. A stocky
middle-aged man emerged and settled his cap onto his gray head.

“Mr. McFerrin?” he asked, sizing Mac up as he
approached.

Mac stuck out his hand. “Connor McFerrin.
Thank you for coming—” Mac flicked a glance at his badge “—Officer
Gerard.”

“What seems to be the trouble, Mr. McFerrin?”
Gerard gave Mac’s hand a quick shake, assessed the small crowd now
gathering in the street and then the unsightly truck parked further
up the driveway.

“I contracted these gentlemen” Mac gestured
toward the truck “to remove a tree from my property and some of my
neighbors have staged a protest of sorts.” He shoved his hands into
his pockets and wondered of the whole scene looked as ridiculous as
the story he’d just told sounded.

Officer Gerard pushed up his cap and
scratched his forehead. “Well, Mr. McFerrin, if this is your
property, then that’s your tree. Why don’t you direct me to the
protesters and I’ll send them on their way.”

Mac smiled, relieved. “This way, Officer.” In
his peripheral vision, he watched Gerard’s face as they walked
around the truck and to the tree. He clenched his jaw to prevent
the grin that came naturally at the sight of the man’s astonished
double take when he saw the women, backs to the bark, encircling
the tree.

“Good afternoon, ladies—”

“Phil?” Free Renzetti stepped from the
opposite side of the tree, smiling with relief. She hurried as fast
as her bare feet would take her to the officer’s side.

“Free? What the hell is going on here?” the
officer asked.

“Phil, you’ve got to do something,” she
pleaded and clutched his arm.

Mac shook his head and plunked his hands on
his hips. “I don’t believe this.” She knew the guy? Perfect.

“This…this” Free glowered at Mac “zodiac
misfit intends to cut down our beautiful tree.”

“
Our?
I have every right—” Mac
started, but Officer Gerard halted him with one upraised palm.

“This is Magnolia Blossom Drive,” the gypsy
beseeched, “he can’t cut down this ancient tree—it would be a
sacrilege!”

The crowd of neighbors had moved from the
street onto Mac’s lawn now. He could hear them murmuring behind his
back. “This is outrageous,” he snapped. “This is my property and
I’ll damn well dispose of that tree if I want to.”

Offer Gerard cut him a warning glance. “Go
on, Free,” he said patiently.

“There just has to be something we can do to
stop him,” she said, her big blue eyes bright with tears.

Oh hell, as if things weren’t bad enough, the
woman was going to cry now. Mac rolled his eyes and forced the roar
of protest that tightened his chest. He was at this cop’s mercy,
and the cop was obviously her friend.

Gerard patted her arm kindly, making Mac grit
his teeth. “Free, if Mr. McFerrin wishes to cut down this tree,
there isn’t a single thing I can do about it unless his actions
somehow posed a threat to you or your property.”

“What if the tree is on the property line?”
Alex asked from her post. The cut of her pricey business suit
showed off her slender figure well. Everything about the woman
screamed money and influence. Her confident bearing and
professional appearance struck Mac as odd, considering her current
actions.

“The tree is on my property,” Mac ground out.
How dare the woman imply that he didn’t know the boundaries of his
own property. He was an architect, for Pete’s sake. Lines and
angles were his business.

“Perhaps we need to have second opinion on
the survey,” Alex suggested. She stepped forward then, arms folded
over her chest. Mac didn’t miss the calculating gaze she allowed
him, or the timid peek Emily took around Alex’s shoulder.

“I can’t believe you aren’t going to put a
stop to this,” Mac said to Gerard, his tone leaving no questions as
to the extent of his unhappiness with the officer’s response.

“Now see here,” Gerard began. The grumbling
in the crowd grew louder as they closed in on the ridiculous
scene.

“Phil, don’t let this egotistical tree-hater
speak to you that way,” Free put in, her blue eyes shooting daggers
at Mac.

“I’ve got your number, lady.” Mac narrowed
his gaze and took a step closer to Free. He stabbed an accusing
finger in her direction. “You’re trying to shift the focus from the
real issue here. This is my tree and I damned well intend to cut it
down.” He punctuated his final words by shaking his finger in her
pretty face.

Big mistake.

The next thing Mac knew, Free had grabbed his
hand and clamped down on his finger with her pearly whites. He
belted out a string of profanities.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Mac
roared. He clenched and unclenched his hand, trying to relieve the
throb her teeth had generated. She glared at him as if she might
bite him again. He jerked his head in Officer Gerard’s direction.
“Did you see that? She bit me!”

“Free, you just can’t go around biting people
when—”

“When they act like jerks,” Free finished for
him, her gaze knifing straight through Mac.

“Lady, you’re dangerous!”

Another big mistake.

She kicked him in the shin, hard. Mac cursed
again. The din behind him increased. He rubbed the spot she’d
kicked. It hadn’t really hurt, just humiliated him further. Mac
derived a great deal of pleasure from her pained yelps. She had
evidently forgotten she was barefoot when she kicked him. She
nursed her right foot in her hands, the action revealing a lot of
one shapely thigh. And something that looked like a birthmark
or…tattoo! She had a rose tattoo on her left thigh; Mac had the
sudden, almost overwhelming urge to reach out and touch it, but had
no intention of risking further violence to his person.

“If you two are through assaulting each
other, we’ll get on with this,” Gerard said impatiently.

They responded in unison, with the same
fierce hostility.

“This is entirely her fault!” Mac insisted.
Free asserted, “This is all his fault!”

Befuddled, the officer just sort of stared at
them.

“Why aren’t you doing something, Phil?” Free
poked Officer Gerard in the chest with her index finger.

“Yeah,” Mac added. “Why don’t you get this
crazy woman off my property?”

She turned on him then, outraged. “Who are
you calling crazy?” She jabbed Mac in the chest, her neon-green
nail making him feel like a pincushion. “You’re the one who wants
to cut his magnificent tree down!”

Before she could jab him the second time,
Gerard grabbed her wrist and slapped a metal bracelet around it.
Her eyes rounded in surprise.

Mac grinned in exultation, but his victory
died a swift death as the officer manacled his wrist and locked the
other half of the handcuffs in place. “What the hell are you
doing?” Mac demanded.

“Hauling both of you downtown,” Gerard
answered succinctly.

Mac’s gaze collided with Free’s and for one
instant something electrifying passed between them. Then it was
gone, leaving Mac struggling to regain his equilibrium. The next
thing he knew, Officer Gerard was ushering them into the backseat
of his cruiser.

~*~

“I can’t believe this,” Free muttered. She
surveyed the small holding cell Phil had left them in more than an
hour ago. How could he do this to her? She and Phil went back a
long way. He probably knew Free better than anyone else in the
world. Understood her better, too. But this? She closed her eyes
and shook her head. “I just can’t believe it.”

“Believe it,” Mac growled in response.

Free snapped her eyes open and glared at her
cellmate. And to put them in the same holding cell…that was just
wrong.

“This is your fault.”

“My fault?” His eyes sparkled with
indignation. He moved his head slowly, solemnly from side to side.
“Lady, you are one piece of work.”

“You—” Free started to point an accusing
finger, but the weight of his hand stopped her. She stared down at
the metal bracelets that joined them. “I know this isn’t right. He
should have removed these when we got here,” more to herself than
to the man standing before her.

“Well, if you hadn’t poked him the chest with
that deadly weapon,” he glared at the offending hand now cuffed to
his “we might not be here right now. Do you have any idea of the
consequences of assaulting an officer of the law?”

Free jerked her hands to her hips, pulling
him nearer in the process. “If you hadn’t tried to kill that
wonderful old tree—”

A muscle flexed repeatedly in his handsome
jaw. “It’s my tree,” he ground out. “I can kill it if I want
to.”

Free was really angry now. She had thought
the humiliation of being pushed into a police car and brought to
the police station had quelled her rage, but she’d been wrong. It
hit her full force now. She leaned in dangerously close to Mac the
Magnolia Murderer. “Just try it, buster, and I’ll be on top of you
like—”

His blue gaze connected with hers and the
rest of the statement stalled on her lips. His nostrils flared. He
was so very close. Closer than she had expected, closer than he
should have been, and still not close enough. All strength of
conviction suddenly whooshed out of her, along with the air in her
lungs. Long fingers from the hand cuffed to hers closed around her
waist and tugged her even closer. His breath feathered across her
lips. His scent assaulted her senses, making her week-kneed.

His unrestrained hand came up to her face,
and he traced gentle fingers down her neck. “Now that,” he
murmured, his lips threatening and promising a kiss, “is an
interesting proposal.”

“Free! Oh my God, Free, are you all
right?”

Alex
. Free and Mac jumped apart as far
as the cuffs would allow, both looking anywhere but at each other.
Free gave herself a mental shake to clear the haze that had settled
inside her head. She smiled with relief when Alex reached the cell
and peered through the steel bars.

“I’m fine, Alex,” Free assured her friend
when she saw the fear in her eyes.

“Phil is on his way to get you out of there
right now. Honey, I’m so sorry it has taken so long, but he refused
to release you until McFerrin’s attorney” she arrowed a piercing
gaze at Mac “had been contacted.”

“Mac, I got here as soon as I could.” The
voice came from a tall, good-looking man who walked up behind
Alex.

Alex whirled to face him. “What the hell are
you doing here?”

The man smiled. “Why, I’m representing my
client, of course.”

Alex looked from him to McFerrin and back.
“Since when are you representing this man? I’ve never see his name
on any of the files at the firm.”

He arched one dark, unabashed eyebrow. “Since
John Whitaker, his attorney in Atlanta, asked me to.” The man
stepped around Alex and extended his hand through the bars toward
Mac. “I’m Jake Larsen.”

Mac took his hand, a wide grin splitting his
face. “Thanks for coming, Jake. John told me all about you.”

Alex laughed derisively. “Well, it couldn’t
have been good.”

Free drew her eyebrows together in
bewilderment. “Alex, do you know this man?”

Alex sighed mightily. “It’s him,” she said
sarcastically. “Father’s future partner at the firm.”

“Oh,” Free said knowingly. So this was the
guy Alex lived to hate.

“I have the distinct impression that what
you’ve heard isn’t flattering, Ms. Renzetti,” Jake suggested in a
sexy drawl that made even Free shiver.

“Let’s just say that it doesn’t bear
repeating,” she told him politely.

“This situation represents a stark breach of
ethics,” Alex said coolly.

“I don’t see how,” Larsen countered.

“No one ever accused you of being quick on
your feet, Jake. This is a definite conflict of interest. We’re
both from the same law firm and our clients are on opposing
sides.”

Alex’s reply made sense to Free, but then she
wasn’t legally inclined.

“Well, I suppose if you have a problem, Alex,
you’ll just have to bow out.”

“I don’t think so.” Her tone was icy.

“In that case, I say we get this disagreement
negotiated.”

“There’s nothing to negotiate,” Mac
interjected brusquely. “It’s my property. I have every right to ct
down that tree if I so choose.”

“Over my dead body,” Free retorted, meeting
his steel-melting gaze with lead in her own.