Mad About You (18 page)

He clicked through the channels, stopping briefly at an adult movie before frowning and going on to the news. It would do him good to be reminded that more important things were going on in the world, that he had isolated himself, making this little burglary case—and Kat—seem more significant than they really were. After all, in the scheme of things, it was one nonviolent crime, and she was one woman.

To prove his point, he reached for his phone and booked a first-class seat on a direct flight to New York Monday night at eleven-thirty. He hung up with a smile of satisfaction on his face, but it was short-lived.

His traitorous eyes strayed to the Woman box on the floor. Females were such complex creatures—changing moods at the drop of a hat, first giving, then withholding, seductive one minute, uptight the next—how did any man stick it out? The ones who did, didn't know any better, he decided, nodding to the Man box on the desk for support.

They didn't know there was a world out there to travel, full of beautiful women and good food and wonderful adventures. Didn't know that admitting vulnerability to a woman meant transferring the power to her—the power to woo or wound, as she saw fit.

He glanced back to the Woman box, remembering her curvaceous lines with a rush of pleasure, then bit down on the inside of his cheek. Kat's naked image rose up to mock him, the involuntary hardening of his sex a taunting reinforcement of his earlier observation of power flow between the sexes. The Maker had tempered a woman's package by coupling a vexing will with a tantalizing body. Which was the bottom line, really. Their trump card. They had what men needed, and all the cat-and-mouse games in between revolved around it.

James dropped his head back on the pillows and ad
mitted
defeat to the ceiling fen. Then he pulled himself up, retrieved Woman and sat her on the desk next to Man. "They've got us, but good," he mumbled to his jade counterpart.

He stepped back into his shoes, then walked to the door connecting their rooms and, after a few seconds' hesitation, knocked.

It was nearly a minute before he detected movement on the other side. "Who is it?" she asked.

Case in point, James noted wryly. "An arrogant man bearing apologies."

Silence, then, "Apology accepted."

He closed his eyes in frustration. "I'm leaving tomorrow night, Pussy-Kat."

Several seconds of tense silence passed, then the lock on her door made a
thwacking
sound and she pulled open the door.

James blinked. She wore a long, white sleeveless gown of thin knit, reminiscent of a floor-length fitted T-shirt. Except the innocence of the fabric and the demure neckline was corrupted by the deep armholes and thigh-high slit on either side. Her hair was captured in a low side ponytail, loosely gathered beneath her ear.

"I was ready for bed," she said, her smile a bit shaky.

All moisture had left his mouth. "So I see," he managed to croak.

"So you're leaving tomorrow," she said, suddenly fascinated with the doorknob she held.

He cleared his throat. "Yes, I, um...I'm no longer needed here."

She glanced up, and he tried desperately to read her eyes. "You're not going to try to find the letter?"

"Our friend in Chinatown will stand a much better chance than I."

"And if it isn't located?"

He shrugged. "Then Lady Mercer will collect a few thousand pounds from the insurance company and perhaps an asterisk next to her name in a book someday."

Kat inhaled deeply, straining the nearly transparent fabric. Her nipples were clearly outlined, pebbled from the room's chill, he supposed. His body, indifferent to the cold that had triggered her reaction, began to harden in response to something else.

She laughed softly. "This has been the most eventful three days of my life."

His, too, but in a different way. James reached for her hand and twined her warm fingers with his, then leaned close, his body surging with desire, and whispered, "Let's top it off with an eventful night, shall we?"

After a heartbeat's hesitation, she nodded and opened her mouth to accept his kiss. Within moments they were on her bed, tearing at each other's clothes. James told himself to wait, to love her with steeping slowness, a memory to savor in the months to come. But when she lay bare against him, beneath him, astride him, his restraint fled. Her mouth, hands, and silken passage tore the energy from his body with staggering speed and intensity. He gathered her against him and gasped,
"Kat...Kat....
"

She quieted and was soon breathing evenly beside him, her head tucked beneath his arm. Exhausted, but wide awake, he stared at her incredible breasts rising and falling until he felt the beginning of another erection and decided to get a drink of water.

After easing from the bed, he padded across the room, retrieving his clothing on the way back to his room. There he tossed the garments on the bed, ran a glass of water in the bathroom, and drained it. When he emerged, he decided it would be a good time to call Lady Mercer and tell her of his plans to leave the city. He felt sure she would agree there was little more he could do.

Squashing the nagging thought that he was running away from Kat more than the investigation, he punched in her number and waited for the connection.

"Lady Tania Mercer's residence."

James recognized the sleepy voice of Tania’s personal assistant. "Mary, this is James Donovan. I’m sorry to call at this hour, but I need to speak with Tania—is she available?"

"She left for the London cottage, sir, and she has yet to install a phone there. You can try her cell, but she rarely has it turned on. "

"I know," he said. "When you talk to her, please tell her I've left the matter of the missing letter in the hands of the San Francisco police and I'll be traveling to New York Monday evening. I'll call her when I get settled."

"Fine, Mr. Donovan, I'll tell her."

James ended the connection and briefly wondered if he were letting Tania down by not trying to locate that damned silly love letter. Glancing toward Kat's room, James wondered at what point his mission had shifted from solving the crime to seeing her cleared.

When she'd asked him to get her father's humidor, he decided. He would never forget the panic in her eyes when she thought she might lose something so precious to her. James walked over to his closet, then knelt and dialed in the combination of the wall safe. The door popped open, revealing a cavity not much larger than the humidor itself. The rich scent of the mahogany tickled his nostrils as he carefully withdrew the box.

Since he'd be leaving tomorrow, he would check the water one last time and place the humidor in Kat's room. He lifted the lid and noted on the barometer that the moisture level had dropped just below the proper level of seventy percent He removed the soapsize sponge from a vented cavity and wet it under the faucet. That done, he couldn't resist fingering the wonderful cigars again.

He chose one and twirled it between thumb and forefinger, loving the feel of it, the flash of the gold band, the colorful label. Which seemed to be loose, he noticed, then stopped when something fluttered to the carpet.

James bent over to pick up the tiny square of paper, realizing when he turned it over that it was a stamp. A very old stamp. And he recalled Guy Trent's words when the man had implied that Kat was responsible for items disappearing from the gallery.

Katherine's father found the stamp...bought it for fifteen dollars, and it was worth around fifteen thousand...then a few weeks after he died, it vanished.

Chapter Twelve

KAT STIRRED, feeling a delicious sense of contentment. The sheets were warm, the pillow was comfy, James was—she opened her eyes and glanced toward his pillow...James was gone. As she stared, the digital clock on the nightstand went from two-twelve to two-thirteen.

Frowning, she sat up in near complete darkness, holding the sheet to her breasts. "James?" she whispered.

"I'm here." His voice came from the direction of the armchairs.

She squinted until she discerned his outline, black on black, sitting with his long legs propped on the ottoman. "Why aren't you sleeping?"

"I'm asking myself the same question," he said, his voice low and rumbling. "Considering I'm not the one who should have a guilty conscience." She heard a click, then the bulb of a small reading lamp illuminated him in a yellow haze. He had donned his slacks, but they gaped unzipped around his waist, revealing his pale underwear.

He was barefoot, his legs crossed at the ankles. On the tip of his large forefinger dangled a stamp. Her father's stamp.

Her heart jumped to her throat. "What do you mean?"

His mouth tightened. "I
mean
Guy Trent told me a valuable stamp disappeared from the gallery shortly after your father was killed—he implied that you had taken it, but I didn't believe him."

She pulled the sheet higher, covering herself from his incriminating gaze. Her mind raced. Would he understand why she had taken it? He seemed to dodge emotional involvement but if he had been close to his parents—

"Say something!" he barked, pounding his fist on the padded arm of the chair.

Kat jumped, inhaling sharply. Then anger sparked within her, and she pushed herself up and walked across the bed on her knees. "Don't you
dare
speak to me like I've done something to you! Those jackals at the gallery never gave my dad credit for anything!" Her voice and hands shook violently. Hateful, bitter words that had been festering in her stomach for years bubbled up and out of her mouth, like a cleansing regurgitation.

"For years, my father begged Mr. Jellico to build a restoration center, only to be told it was a foolish idea. Then Guy Trent arrives and reads an old memo my father wrote and presented it like it was his sudden inspiration. Not only was it built, but Guy received national recognition for his innovative concept of assembly-line-style restoration teams—an idea he stole from my father's notes."

She stepped to the floor and walked closer to him, leaning forward, shaking her finger. "My father bought that stamp one day on his lunch hour—I had convinced him to leave Jellico's and he said we'd use the money to start our own antique furniture business. Instead, Guy told him he'd bought it on the gallery's time, and bullied my dad into giving it to him."

To her horror, tears blurred her vision. "My dad was so naive, he just...handed it over." She stopped and straightened, taking a deep breath and forcing herself to calm down. "After he died, I actually forgot about it until I went into Guy's office to fetch something he was too lazy to get for himself, and there it was, lying on his desk in a mailing case, next to a sales order. The bastard had sold it for eighteen thousand dollars." Her laugh tasted bitter on the back of her throat. "I couldn't let him do it, so I stole the stamp." She sniffed mightily. "Go ahead and call the police if you feel like you have to."

Except for his eyes, he had barely moved during her outburst. Setting her mouth, she refused to drop her gaze, refused to back down.

He pressed his lips together and held up the stamp. "So this is why you failed the polygraph?"

She nodded, wary.

"And you had nothing to do with the disappearance of the letter?"

She shook her head no.

"So why didn't you simply sell the stamp and pay off your debt to the gallery?"

"Guy would have been suspicious," she said. "Besides, just having it gives me more satisfaction than the money it would bring."

James nodded slowly, then studied the stamp for several long moments.

"So," Kat said, trying to keep her voice steady, "are you going to call the police?"

When James looked up, a frown carved deep lines in his face, pulling down the corners of his eyes. "How can I do that without admitting I removed the humidor in the first place? Besides, perhaps what you did was wrong, but it was for the right reason."

His mouth twisted into a sad smile as he closed his fingers around her wrist and gently tugged her toward him. At first, Kat resisted—the fact that he was leaving today was the worst reason to succumb to him...and the best, she decided with a sigh, allowing herself to be pulled down on his lap. She settled into his body like floodwater searching for low ground, oozing into his crevices and leveling off.

He grabbed the end of a sheet she'd dragged onto the floor, whipped it above them with a flip of his wrists, and allowed it to float down around them. Then he clicked off the light and tucked her head beneath his neck. Relieved, spent, and a little frightened of the strong feelings coursing through her, she felt herself drifting off almost immediately, lulled by the cadence of his heart beneath her cheek.

*****

James started awake and blinked, not sure what he'd heard. A dull sound—a distant knock perhaps? From the direction of his room came the sound of a faint scrape and a swishing noise, as if someone had slid something under the door to his adjacent room.

He lifted his head, and winced at the needles shooting through one arm and both legs. Kat lay snuggled up against him, her breath fanning across the hair on his chest. She hadn't stirred, and he hated to wake her. The clock read only five-thirty, and her sleep had already been interrupted once.

By him—because he'd been so shaken that she'd lied to him. But even as a small part of him hoped Kat
had
lied so he'd have a reason to forget her, he'd wrung from her a soul-baring confession that triggered all kinds of protective feelings in his chest. Now as he watched her sleep, he wondered how he'd ever thought she would have committed a crime for her own personal gain. In his mind, the stamp rightfully belonged to her, and he had a new lead suspect—Guy Trent. Perhaps he and Beaman were in cahoots.