Ride a Painted Pony (Superromance) (17 page)

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Authors: Carolyn McSparren

BOOK: Ride a Painted Pony (Superromance)
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“He’s a client.”
“He’s a man. A great big, sexy man.”
“I don’t generally go for men like Nick, no matter how big and sexy they are.”
“Why ever not?”
Taylor took another cheese straw, leaned back and put her feet on the ottoman. “For the same reason you’re in love with Max.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Max is your prototypical star bastard,” Taylor said. “I have been falling for star bastards since Freddy Colbert knocked me off my skates in the second grade and I had to have three stitches in my bottom lip—” she touched the thin white line that ran from her lip like a minute hand pointing to twenty-five minutes after the hour “—but point me at a decent, caring, gentle man and I run screaming in the other direction. The psychologists say it’s low self-esteem. We think we deserve to be mistreated,” Taylor said, and sipped her iced tea.
Until now, she thought.
“Horse pucky,” Veda said and gulped hers. “I’ve got self-esteem up the wazoo, and even after tonight I’d probably still go to bed with Max if he asked me. Which he won’t.”
“Hasn’t he given you any sign that he’s interested?”
“I’m twenty years too old for him,” Veda said bitterly. “He’s got a string of women my son’s age and younger. He takes them to dinner, beds them. They help him with that benighted house of his, but nobody stays long.” Veda leaned back against the sofa and closed her eyes. “After Bill died I didn’t think I’d ever want another man. Then I walked into Rounders and there’s Max. God, what did I see in the man?”
“Maybe some of the same things I saw in my husband Paul.”
“Nick’s different.”
“But he doesn’t keep his women around long either.”
“They always part friends. Max’s women always leave in a huff.” Veda raised her head and Taylor saw that her eyes were filled with unshed tears. “Tell me about your Paul.”
“Handsome as Lucifer, Law Review at Harvard, slated to be a named partner in his firm before his fiftieth birthday, married Taylor Maxwell, perfect consort and hostess, in a society wedding with twelve bridesmaids and a reception at the country club. Cinderella gets her fella. Happily ever after.”
“What was the problem?”
“I’m not Cinderella, although I didn’t know that until after he died. We both got cheated.”
After a moment Veda said softly, “You think Max is guilty of this, don’t you?”
“Assuming that Josh’s alibi checks out, he’s starting to look better and better,” Taylor said.
“I could tell from the way you looked at him. You don’t like him.”
“He loathes me.”
“He’s afraid you’ve taken Nick away from him.”
Taylor said nothing.
Veda nodded. “Oh, yes, he is. Nick is the son he never knew. Nick respects him. The other women in Nick’s life were unimportant adjuncts, but you’re different. I’ve seen the way Nick looks at you.”
“How?”
“Like you’re a shiny new Illions King Stander with the original park paint.”
Taylor laughed.
Veda took her hand. “No, I mean it. When he looks at you he’s—I don’t know—hungry. I used to wish Max looked at me that way.”
“Why don’t you tell him how you feel?”
“If he said he wasn’t interested—and he would—we’d never be easy with one another again. I’d have to give up Rounders. God, I can’t imagine life without Rounders!”
“Is the carving that important to you?”
“I was a floor nurse for twenty years. Everybody said how competent I was and how caring. I didn’t want to be competent, I wanted to be creative! I can’t play an instrument or draw a straight line, or act, or dance—but the day I walked into Rounders I found out that I could carve. I’m damn good at it.”
“I know you are, I’ve seen the frog and Harvey.”
“They rely on me at Rounders; they like me—not as a nurse, but as a colleague. I won’t give that up, not even for Max!”
“You shouldn’t have to.” Taylor regarded Veda with compassion. “It doesn’t get easier, does it?”
“With age, you mean?” Veda laughed without humor. “Harder, if anything. On top of everything else there’s the pressure of time and the pull of gravity.”
“You still look great.”
“Not naked I don’t. Or not that great.” Veda set her glass down on the side table. “Hell, Taylor, I don’t want to die without ever making love again.”
“And you want to make it with Max.”
“I don’t know anyone else.”
“Somebody will look at you the way you want Max to.”
“I probably won’t look back.” Veda shook her head. “I know he’s bad for me, but if you think the pickings are slim at your age, you ought to try them at mine.”
The two women sat silently for a moment, then Taylor asked, “Veda, does Max need money?”
Veda drew in her breath shortly and began to shake her head in a gesture that was more denial of the question than an answer to it. “I don’t know. That house is a money pit, and I know he’s sent his son money a couple of times. He feels so guilty about losing the boy—hell, he’s no boy, Michael’s a grown man with a son of his own.”
“A grandson? Does Max see him?”
“I don’t think he’s ever laid eyes on him.”
“Do you have any idea when the animals were stolen?”
“The last time I was in that storeroom was when I finished my Death and Glory Frog—you know, the one in the red waistcoat. That was in June—no, July. Just before the Fourth, I think. I didn’t pay much attention, but the room seemed as full as usual.”
“Why didn’t you take the frog home?”
Veda laughed and waved a hand at the clutter around her. “And put him where?” She shook her head. “Nick is determined we’re going to start a carousel museum. There’s a lower floor that’s not in use. It was rented out for a while to a man who did ornamental ironwork, but he moved out to his own building.”
“What’s down there? Nick told me Rounders only uses the second floor. I assumed there was another tenant on the ground floor. There’s no access from the foyer.”
Veda shook her head. “Nick had the door blocked off. The iron person had a side door put in. It’s always locked.” Veda raised a hand to her mouth. “Taylor, you don’t think someone moved those horses down there, do you? That they’ve been there all along and nobody’s even checked?”
The doorbell rang. Veda went to let Nick in.
“Sorry it took me so long. I had to put Max to bed. He gets like this sometimes.”
The moment she heard his voice, Taylor felt her skin tingle. Was she finally growing up? Resonating to a man like Nick instead of to the insensitive louts she’d hankered after since the second grade? She wanted to run into his arms, taste his kiss once more. Instead she sat where she was and waved a cheese straw in his direction.
“Nick,” Veda said excitedly, “could the animals be stashed downstairs at Rounders?”
Nick grinned. “Sorry, Veda, I checked. Empty.”
“Well, damn,” Veda said.
“You want to join us for dinner?” Nick asked.
Veda shook her head. “Thank you, no. I am going to take a glass of wine and a salami sandwich up to bed. It’s been a hell of a long day.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
N
ICK BARELY SPOKE OVER DINNER. Taylor made a couple of attempts at chitchat, then gave up and concentrated on her steak.
Over coffee she said, “The only suspect I haven’t met is Marcus Cato. I’ll try to see him tomorrow. Veda says she thinks the animals were all there in July, but that’s four months ago. We need to narrow down the time of the theft.”
“I can do that,” Nick said.
Taylor blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“I said I think I know when they were stolen.”
“Well, would it be too much for you to enlighten me?”
He looked up at her and shook his head. “I’ve been sitting here going over things. That’s why I haven’t been decent company.”
Taylor leaned her elbows on the table and propped her chin on her hands. “Okay. Give.”
“Not going to be much help.”
“Try me.”
“I helped Veda move her frog Fourth of July weekend. I know everything was there because I had to move some things around to find space for it.”
“Go on.”
“Most of the time, I stick pretty close to Rounders. I haven’t had a vacation in three years.”
Taylor nodded.
“Whoever took them would want to move other animals to fill in the gaps so the room would look okay.”
“I’m with you, so far.”
“The freight elevator’s not that wide, so I figure it would take several hours to move ten animals, especially if Eugene was doing the grunt work by himself. I don’t see Helmut Eberhardt or Clara as the kind to get their fingernails dirty, do you?”
“Not from what I’ve learned, no.”
“Eberhardt took a couple of weeks, minimum, to age the hippocampus, but he probably didn’t start aging it or the others immediately. He’d want to know whether the thefts had been discovered and reported. Then there was lag time in his shop. I doubt Pete Marley stumbled on the hippocampus the first day Eberhardt brought it in. That leaves a space between the Fourth of July and, say, October first.”
“Go on.”
“There were only two spans when they could count on getting into Rounders without getting caught. I went to a carousel convention in Sarasota the first week in August. Josh and Veda looked after Rounders during the day, but nobody stayed overnight.”
“And the second?”
“I went to an auction in Louisville over Labor Day. Left Friday afternoon, came home Monday evening. Rounders was closed the entire time.”
“That’s probably when they were stolen,” Taylor said. “In August there was always a possibility somebody would stay late or arrive early. How come you just figured this out?”
“I guess I didn’t want to analyse it. The only people who could have known about my absences were the regulars—my friends. I wanted to believe that it could have been someone from outside Rounders who cased the place and got in touch with the Eberhardts.”
“Not likely.”
“I know, I know. In the end the only real suspects are the people who were at Rounders when I called from Seattle to tell Max about Marley’s hippocampus—correction, my hippocampus.”
“So where were all of them over Labor Day weekend?”
Nick shrugged and shook his head. “Does it matter? Whoever set the thing up didn’t have to be physically present. If it were me, I’d arrange to be halfway around the world.”
“Was Max with you in Sarasota and Louisville?”
Nick sighed. “Both times.”
 
TAYLOR SAW NO SIGN OF EUGENE outside the restaurant. As she walked to her truck, Nick called after her, “Leave your truck here. I’ve got something to show you.”
She shrugged and climbed into the Rounders truck beside him. As usual, the moment they weren’t actually discussing the thefts, she started thinking of Nick the man, and forgetting Nick the client. Not good. She slid as close to her door as she could.
“Where we going?” she asked.
“Wait and see,” he said mysteriously.
Ten minutes later they pulled up before the guard shack in front of the amusement park. Nick left Taylor sitting in the car and walked over to talk to the guard. Several times Nick pointed at Taylor. She saw the guard hand Nick a heavy key attached to a tag by a chain.
“Come on,” he said and opened her door. He unlocked the entrance gate in the chain-link fence, held it open for her and locked it behind them, then led her through the turnstile into the park.
Old-fashioned gas lamps spilled red-gold light on the curved concrete walk that meandered between shuttered concession stands. The moon was nearly full and the night was warm for early November.
They turned a corner and reached the big circular enclosure around the carousel. The park was still open on weekends from Labor Day to Thanksgiving, so the sides of the enclosure were open. Inside, Taylor saw the looming shape of the dozing carousel.
Nick stepped inside and flicked a switch.
Lights blazed. Taylor blinked in the sudden brilliance.
Nick turned around with a wicked grin on his face. “Welcome!”
“How did you manage this?” Taylor said.
He waggled his eyebrows. “Hey, lady, I got connections.” He took her hand and drew her inside the enclosure. His eyes lit with pleasure. “This is my baby. Max and I helped restore it a few years back. I know you think carousels are kind of dumb, but I thought maybe if you saw a really fine one in action...”
“It’s lovely,” she whispered, staring in awe.
She hadn’t seen the carousel since she rode it as a tiny child, and had never appreciated its beauty. The horses were strong, lifelike, and yet appealing with their gentle faces and large eyes. They had been painted to be so perfectly lifelike that she felt as though their tossing manes would blow in the breeze the moment the carousel started. How could she have forgotten how much she had loved it as a child?
She turned to Nick. He looked like a young boy who’d presented her with a shiny box and couldn’t wait to see her face when she opened it.
“So what do you think?”
For the first time she saw him as he must look when he wasn’t weighed down with worry, saw the laughter in his eyes. He grinned down at her, no longer with a wolfs grin, but with the smile of a joyous sixteen-year-old boy showing off his first car to his girl.
“Isn’t it great?”
“It’s wonderful,” she replied.
His big rough fingers intertwined with hers.
She felt her heart turn over, a flash of longing tingle from her fingertips along her nerve endings. She looked up at the curls around his ears and the crooked smile that she’d known from the first moment she’d met him would get her—sooner or later.
Oh, he is a nice man, she thought, a good man, a gentle man. I want him to smile like this always. I want to be the one who fixes things for him. And I want to hold him and love him and feel his body against me and his lips on mine. I want him above me and inside me and smiling down at me. I want to feel his hands and his tongue and his body. I want to cherish him and have him cherish me.
I want him to smile at me the way he smiles at the carousel. Forever.
No more casual lust. No more simple sexual attraction. He’d carried her across a threshold into magic. Under the benign gaze of the wooden horses, she felt a lingering chill break loose inside her, as though the last remnants of a glacier had tumbled and melted into a warm green sea.
She was terrified.
Alone was safe. Nick wasn’t safe. She needed to stay on her guard, keep her distance, enjoy and be enjoyed without opening herself to the possibility of pain.
She’d been as armored as the horse she’d chosen to carve. Her protective shield was as impregnable as a bullet-proof vest. Cupid’s arrow hadn’t a chance of piercing her heart.
But Nick was peeling off that armor like layers of park paint. Underneath, she was naked and raw.
He turned to smile down into her eyes, and she nearly choked. She was certain that he could read her feelings in her face. All her instincts for self-preservation snapped to rigid attention, and, just as surely, this new vulnerable self kicked the stew out of them.
The moment passed. She hadn’t leapt into his arms or torn his clothes off or attached her lips to his mouth like a limpet. Although she’d wanted to. She gulped.
Maybe he hadn’t noticed.
Please God
, she prayed,
let me not make a total idiot of myself.
“Come on,” he said and pulled her onto the platform.
They wove through the sleeping carousel while Nick explained about the horses—the outside row standers with three or four legs anchored firmly to the ground, the king stander—the largest lead horse. “They don’t move up and down,” he said.
She nodded. She didn’t trust her voice. She watched Nick, not the horses. She tried to concentrate on his words, but the feelings that swept over her when she looked at him were so new, so scary that she kept losing her train of thought.
“The inside rows—the prancers with both forefeet in the air, the jumpers with all four off the ground—they move up and down,” he said.
“There’s not going to be a quiz later, is there?”
He laughed and patted a saddle. “I’ll have you picking out Illions and Philadelphia Toboggan Company and Denzel and Parkers before you know it.”
“Not in the next millennium.”
Nick slid his hands down the bodies, legs, under the hooves, all over the horses, as though he had eyes in his fingertips. Taylor watched him, the sensitivity with which those long, callused fingers delved into the furrows in this one’s mane or under that one’s saddle. His face wore a gentle, secret smile as though he’d come home to long lost friends. She visualized those fingers delving into the secret places of her body, and couldn’t breathe.
Suddenly he froze. His eyes popped open. His languid hands suddenly became urgent, sliding up over the ears of a second-row prancer. Then he began to shake his head. “No. It can’t be. My God, it can’t be.”
“What?” Taylor went to him. He moved to the next horse in the line, and then he began to weave through them almost at a trot, reaching out to touch the left ear or right foreleg of each horse in turn. She held on to the pole and watched him until he disappeared around the curve, then heard his footsteps echo as he strode across the wooden planks until at last he came up behind her.
“What is it?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”
“Taylor.” He sounded sick.
“What?”
He pulled her roughly away from the gray prancer. “Look at the left ear.”
“So?”
“My God, Taylor. It’s mine.”
She stared at him openmouthed. “But that’s impossible.” And then after a moment, “How can you know?”
He sank into the chariot behind her. His head dropped into his hands. She sat beside him and touched his arm. “Tell me.” She wanted to cry out against whatever had lost him that smile, that peace.
Without raising his head he spoke. “I told you I instinctively recognized the hippocampus in Seattle as mine. That was only part of it.” He raised his head to look at her and his eyes were frighteningly bleak. “I carved these things when I was twenty-five and arrogant as hell. I knew damned well they were good, and I knew a hell of a lot about how to fake anything valuable. I didn’t want anybody to be able to do that, so I carved an identification into every one of my animals, Taylor. A mark nobody else knew about.” He pointed. “That prancer has my mark. Somehow, God only knows how, a real antique horse has been replaced by one of mine.”
“No way,” Taylor said.
Nick nodded.
“Only one?”
He nodded again.
“What mark? This one doesn’t look any different from the others.” She stood, went to the prancer and ran her hand over the ears. Then she came back to him. “They’re old. They’ve been restored dozens of times. It’s just a coincidence.”
“No. It’s mine.”
“That’s what you were checking? For a nick in the wood?”
“Yeah. Left ear or right foreleg, sometimes both. Not a big nick, but big enough so that I could feel it when I touched it. My nick. My mark. The hippocampus had one on the tail fluke. My God, Taylor, somebody’s stolen a real Denzel and replaced it with mine.”
“How? When?”
Nick sank onto his haunches at the edge of the carousel platform. Taylor sat beside him, not daring to touch him.
Finally he spoke. “This carousel has been protected from the weather. It’s in great shape, but there’s wear and tear, and the damn thing is old. We pulled some of the horses off and took them to Rounders to repair—new mane carvings, belly pieces, even a leg or two. That’s when it must have happened.”
“Who helped?”
“Max. Only Max.”

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