Sleight Of Hand (7 page)

Or, she could be lying. He still hadn't ruled
out that she was in some way involved in the whole scheme. Not the
actual theft, but everyone in the business knew London was a
thieves' kitchen for stolen art.

"Strange that you're not married."

"What's strange about that?" She bristled. "I
don't see a wedding ring on your finger."

"I've been too busy to think about settling
down."

"So have I."

Plenty of women juggled careers and marriage.
So did men. He had good reason to avoid that safe, secure world,
but why would Sarah? He reached into his memory and plucked out her
reason for returning to New York. Her friend's marriage. She'd as
much as told him she was lonely, but he hadn't bought her
story.

"What about--what's his name?--Derek? That
guy with you in New York. You two seemed pretty tight."

He hid his smile when she snorted. "Oh,
please. He's a pest," she confided. "I don't even know where he
came from."

"What do you mean, you don't know where he
came from?"

"The minute I arrived in New York, he was
just there. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get rid of
him."

"But...." He stopped and tried to make sense
of what she said, but anger blanketed his mind. "You let him pick
you up?"

She drew back from him. "Don't be ridiculous.
Besides, what's it to you if I did?"

Nothing. It meant absolutely nothing to him.
"Sarah, this may be important. Exactly how did you meet Derek?
What's his last name?"

"Scott. Derek Scott. How did I meet him?" She
rapped her knuckles on the counter and frowned. "I guess it was at
the magazine. I went there after checking into my hotel. He talked
to me as if he knew who I was."

She shrugged, but Chance noticed the
increased tempo of her knuckles hitting the counter. "It doesn't
mean anything. Everybody knows everybody else in the magazine
trade."

"But you didn't know him," he pointed
out.

She stopped rapping her knuckles and massaged
her hand. "No, but it's been a long time since I've been in New
York."

"Ah, we're back to that again."

"What's that suppose to mean?"

He took his time studying her, letting his
gaze linger on the gentle swell of her breasts, then finally looked
into her eyes. "An attractive woman like you...." He raised his
eyebrows. "I'm having a hard time buying the idea that you came
home because you were lonely."

"Well, believe it." She snatched her broken
camera from the counter and marched off to her room. Before she
disappeared inside, someone knocked on the outside door.

She swung back to him, and despite his cold
clammy jeans, despite the pulsating pain in his ankle and the
headache just behind his eyes that was threatening to turn vicious,
he felt ridiculously reassured by the trust in her eyes.

"Should I answer that?" She moved back to the
kitchen and handed him her camera. "Maybe we'd better put that out
of sight for now."

"Yeah." He slid it on a shelf under the
counter and limped over to her. "You go to your room. I'll handle
this."

She looked him up and down. "I don't think
so. You don't look too steady on your feet."

Before he could argue, another knock rapped
on the door.

"Who is it?" Sarah called out.

"Harvey. Chance got a call from Florida."

A series of alarms blared inside Chance's
head. Steve knew better than to phone unless there was an
emergency. It had to be his family or Agent Gage. Either one was
bad news.

"Just a sec, Harvey." With a sense of doom,
he shuffled toward the door. Sarah caught his hand and raised his
arm over her shoulder. She walked with him across the room.

"Are you always this stubborn?" She scowled
at him.

He set his jaw rigidly. She was one to talk.
"Some people would call it determined."

When they stopped in front of the door, he
grabbed her by the shoulders and moved her over a couple of feet
until she stood behind the door. "Be a good girl and stay quiet
until I know for sure Harvey's alone."

Her huff of indignation sparked a smile
inside him. He opened the door a crack. Seeing only Harvey on the
step, he stood back and opened it all the way.

"Come on in, Harvey. I got a call?" His ankle
throbbing, he turned and limped back to the couch.

"Hurt yourself? There you are, missus." He
nodded at Sarah as she hurried across the room and helped Chance
sit on the couch.

"I sprained my ankle. Sarah was just getting
me some ice for it, weren't you, honey?" He needed her out of the
room in case Steve had left a message.

"Here now." Harvey held his hand up. "I got
one of those miracle whatnots they advertise on TV. You know, stick
it in the microwave, it's a heating pad. Stick it in the freezer,
and it's like ice. I'll run down and get it and my cell phone. It
don't look like you should be walking far on that ankle."

"That would be wonderful, Harvey." Sarah
walked to the door. "I'll go with you so you don't have to come
back."

Chance cursed all independent women in the
world. "Sarah, dear." He stressed the 'dear' to make sure she
understood. "Have you forgotten how scared you are to walk at night
by yourself?"

He punctuated his sentence with a glower,
then turned to Harvey. "Living in the big city, you know. Some
fears never leave you."

"Yup," Harvey said on an in-take of breath,
sounding surprised and sanguine at the same time. The first time
Chance had heard him do that, he'd had to work hard at not laughing
out loud.

"It's milding up. I don't mind the walk."
Harvey hoisted his sagging pants up. "The wife says I should get
more exercise anyway."

"Was there a message?" Chance asked as Harvey
opened the door.

"A guy named Steve?" Harvey looked at him as
if making certain he had the name right. "He wants you to call as
soon as possible. Sure hope it isn't bad news, being on your
honeymoon and all."

"Steve's a worrier," Chance assured him. "He
probably wants to know if Sarah found me."

Harvey nodded. "He sounded kind of worried.
That's why I came up when I noticed the lights on. I'll be back in
a few minutes."

When the door closed, Chance folded his hands
up behind his head and slid into deep, dark thoughts. His
stepmother was a vigorous woman and had been in good health a few
months ago when they'd had their usual stilted conversation. He
could safely rule her out.

He'd just rescued his younger step-brother
from the latest of a long list of scraps. Michael usually managed
to stay out of trouble for at least two months after a new
episode.

That left Agent Gage, or Gage as Chance had
come to think of him. It was a damned shame they stood on opposite
sides of the fence, because as much as the FBI agent irritated him,
Chance couldn't help but admire the way the man handled
himself.

A sharp, cracking sound splintered his
concentration. Instinctively, he ducked, grabbed Sarah and tossed
her down on the couch. He threw his body over her.

"Keep down." He pushed her head under his
shoulder.

She grunted as she shoved his arm away.
"What's wrong with you?"

He scanned the room. The door remained
closed, and the two windows that faced the road were still intact.
Where the hell were they shooting from?

Then he saw the book on the coffee table. A
hard-covered Condensed Reader's Digest. He'd noticed it earlier on
the shelf above the fireplace.

Great. How was he going to explain this? He
rolled off Sarah and knelt on the floor beside the couch, but kept
her hands firmly in his grasp. Her breathing rasped, keeping time
with the rapid rise and fall of her chest.

"Sorry. I, ah...." What? Thought someone was
shooting at them? Like Sarah needed to hear that. "You startled me.
Sorry." He let go of her hand.

She looked at him, then at the book she'd
dropped, her forehead creased with concentration. The confused look
in her eyes turned to fear. "Omigod, you thought--"

"Forget it, okay?"

She grabbed the front of his sweater and
pulled him closer. "You think those men in the car will try to hurt
us again."

"I overreacted, that's all. Can't blame a guy
for being on edge." Among other things. The feel of her firm
breasts against his chest lit a fire in his belly. She'd pulled him
close enough that he could taste her breathe. Her sweet, clean
flavor stirred his appetite, made him ache for more.

"Chance?"

"Mmmm?" His gaze locked on hers.

"I'm not sure...I mean, I don't think we
should...."

Her voice trailed off uncertainly, but her
eyes.... A fire burned in their dark green depths.

He felt dry and hard and tight, ready to
combust. "Let's leave thinking out of this." He flicked his tongue
over her lower lip, then kissed the corner of her mouth and pulled
back a fraction of an inch. He let go of her hands and waited,
wanting her to admit she was right there with him.

When he heard her sigh, he reached for her,
but she scrambled back into the corner of the couch and wrapped her
arms around her legs, her eyes round with indecision.

The still room was filled with the harsh
sound of their breathing as they stared at each other. Beneath her
doubts, he saw naked desire flare in her eyes.

He broke eye contact and shifted back up on
to the couch, startled by his lack of control. Okay, maybe he
couldn't check his physical response to Sarah, but he could lay it
on the line, tell her where he was with this.

He rested his arms on his knees and stared at
his hands. "It's going to happen, you know."

"How can you be so sure?"

He glanced over his shoulder at her. "Because
we both want it to."

"Don't push me, okay?" She blushed as she
glanced up at him. "I need more time."

His tight knot of need softened as he watched
her. He surprised himself as he stood and planted a soft kiss on
the top of her head. "Don't worry about it, babe. These things have
a way of working out a whether you think about them or not."

"Where did you learn how to do that?"

"What?" He smiled, pleased to see her uncoil
from the tight ball she formed.

"Flip someone down."

"Don't remember. I picked it up along the
way."

He started to limp back toward the kitchen
when her next comment stopped him cold. "I can't figure you
out."

She knelt up and looked at him over the back
of the couch. "There's something...." She shook her head, a puzzled
look on her face. "People make a kind of sense. You know, like
she's a go-getter, and he's a shuffler, that kind of thing. But
you...." She leaned her elbows on the back of the couch and studied
him.

He forced himself to laugh, to move past the
tight feeling in his chest. "Don't leave me hanging."

"I don't know." Sarah laughed with him. "You
tell me."

"You think too much. I'm a
what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of guy. There's no mystery
here."

"But that's the problem. It doesn't add up
the way it should."

"And you know all this after a few hours of
my company." He rolled his eyes. "You got a crystal ball tucked
away somewhere?"

He'd intended to go in low and hard, but he
hadn't anticipated his sudden sense of loss when the lively
intelligence in her eyes dulled.

"You're right." She sank back down on the
couch. "I'm being silly."

He tried to think of something to say to make
her feel better, then cursed softly. What did he think he was he
doing? If he starting caring about how Sarah felt, he'd mess up big
time.

"I'm going to catch a shower." He threw the
words over his shoulder and hobbled as fast as he could out of the
room.

Fifteen minutes later, feeling warm and
relaxed from the hot shower, Chance pulled on a fresh pair of jeans
and made his way back out to the living room. He heard Sarah moving
around her room as he passed it. He breathed a sigh of relief. It
had been a long day, and he needed time to work things over in his
mind.

Harvey must have dropped the cell phone off
while he was in the shower. Without stopping, he grabbed the phone
from where Sarah had placed it prominently on the counter and
escaped to his bedroom. He stripped down to his boxers and
stretched out on the bed as he listened to the phone ring.

"Steve." He yelled, trying to make himself
heard over the background noise of Steve's bar.

"Chance?"

"Yeah. I can hardly hear you."

"Give me a sec," Steve yelled back.

Chance gripped the phone in his hand as he
listened to the din recede.

"Okay, can you hear me now?"

"Yeah, perfect. Sounds like a busy night at
the bar."

"It's still raining down here. Listen Chance,
I think I've got bad news."

Chance sat up, bracing himself to take
another blow. "What's up?"

"It's Agent Gage. He was hanging around here
this afternoon acting kind of strange."

"What do you mean? What did he say?"

"Well, he wanted to know where you were. I
told him the story we worked out," Steve assured him. "You know,
that you knocked up a lady and had to get out from under."

Chance pinched the bridge of his nose. The
idea had been Steve's, not his. He'd suspected Gage wouldn't buy
into it. "He didn't go for it, did he?"

"I don't think so," Steve agreed glumly. "He
creeped me out."

"What does that mean?"

"I know you're going to have a hard time
believing this, but the guy acted almost happy. Honest to God, the
morbid SOB smiled when I told him you weren't here, like it was the
best news he'd heard in the last ten years."

Sweat broke out on Chance's forehead, and for
a minute, the sound of his heart beating in his ears drowned out
Steve's voice. He knew Gage. Knew how he thought, knew his
dog-with-a-bone tenacity.