Thieves In The Night (11 page)

Chantal was drowning in his seduction, and dying for what she couldn’t have. Heavy waves of pleasure weakened her knees as his kiss weakened her will, hinting at the sensual delights he offered. His other kisses hadn’t prepared her for the depth of feeling he was capable of evoking. Nothing had. She turned her mouth deeper into his, loath to let him go, and ran her hands under his sweater, needing to feel him once more—the soft heat of his skin, the tightness of his muscles—for the long nights ahead when the memories of a stranger would haunt her. His response was immediate and undeniable, his body hardening against all her softest places.

He angled his mouth away from hers and laid a trail of wet, biting kisses to her neck. “Make love with me, Chantal.” His voice ached with the same need sweeping through her body. His tongue traced and licked the delicate contours of her ear. His teeth grazed the peach-sweet skin of her nape. “Make love with me.”

She was going to hate herself, already hated herself, for the answer on her lips. Fate should have known better than to set her up with a one-night stand. Tearing herself from him, she took a step away, needing a clean break.

“Jaz, I’m taking you back,” she whispered sadly. “Back to where you were supposed to be last night.” Her hand involuntarily tightened into a fist. How had he come to mean so much? Even breathing hurt. Eyes filled with all the regret in her heart pleaded with him to understand.

But he didn’t understand. He looked as if somebody had kicked him in the gut, his face stark and vulnerable with the passion he needed to share. He stepped forward, his hand reaching.

“No,” she whispered, shaking her head. She couldn’t make love and watch him go. And she couldn’t go with him, wouldn’t run again.

Desire-darkened eyes held hers across the emptiness, and the light of passion was slowly extinguished behind a veil of frustration. A muscle twitched along his tightly clenched jaw. “This doesn’t settle anything, Chantal,” he said roughly. Nothing could hide the harsh edge of disappointment in his voice.

No, he didn’t understand, she thought, but better his anger than his pain. She retrieved the documents from the cedar chest and handed them to him, then turned on her heel and crossed the cabin to her armoire.

Shrugging into a calf-length coyote coat, another expensive present from Elise, she said, “I’ll meet you in the car.” Then, without another glance, she strode past him and out the door.

The ride to Jaz’s hotel was made in silence. There was nothing left to say. He’d told her Snowmass Village, and she made all the turns by instinct, onto Highway 82, the left turn up Brush Creek. She pulled her blue Land Rover to a stop under the canopy of the StoneTree Lodge. Elise hadn’t come through with a sports car; she was waiting for Roger to do that.

Chantal kept the car in gear, the engine idling. No more regrets, she promised herself even as her throat tightened.

“I’m going to need some help. Set the brake and throw her in neutral,” he commanded softly.

What did he think—that this was easy for her? She jerked the shift into neutral and put on the emergency brake with her foot. Instantly guilt engulfed her. He said he needed help, not more anger. She looked over at him. He was stretched out on the other side of the car, his head lounging back over the seat, his legs spread and looking as if they didn’t have an ounce of energy left.

She’d been treating him as though he weren’t wounded, and he was. “Should I have taken you to the medical center, Jaz?” Concern hushed her voice, and she automatically leaned toward him. “Are you hurting?”

“I’m hurting, all right.” He rolled his head sideways and captured her gaze. Like slow-moving lava, his gray eyes traveled over the contours of her face, and his voice lowered to a raspy drawl. “Hurting for you, lady. Real bad.”

Before she could react, his fingers curled around a handful of soft fur and drew her into a hard, burning kiss. His mouth devoured hers, his tongue plunging deep and taking her breath away. It lasted a few seconds—it lasted forever—until he released her and got out of the car.

Jaz stood for a moment in the open door, feeling the wind on his face, the pounding of his heart, and the painful ache of leaving her. There was only one way to make this work.

He half turned, and ducked his head back inside. Her hair had fallen down completely, tumbling around her face like a cloud of gold. Her eyes were wide and soft, veiled with longing, telling him everything he needed to know.

“Hold that thought, babe.”
You belong to me.
“I’ll be back.”
To get what’s mine.

* * *

Chantal wandered through the rest of the afternoon, torn between bittersweet memories and a languid sense of urgency she couldn’t seem to kick into gear. Jaz was gone, but that didn’t mean she could put her life on hold. She had to finish what she’d started the night before.

She knelt in front of her hope chest and closed her eyes. The tumblers rolled—right, left, right—but she missed. She took a deep breath and tried again, keeping her eyes closed. She didn’t know the combination; she’d always relied on her fingers to tell her. Another miss and she crossed her arms over the top of the chest and rested her chin on her hands.

Jaz had said he was coming back. When? She didn’t have a clue. Why? The answer flowed through her veins, filling her with anticipation and apprehension. She’d never felt before what she felt with him, a sense of utter inevitability. He wanted her. He was going to have her . . . if he came back. If he did, she was going to lose her heart.

Liar.
She buried her face in the cowl neck of her dress. Lord, she wished that word would quit jumping out of her subconscious, even if it was the truth. Her heart was already lost. She’d done two stupid things the night before: stolen a necklace for her father and fallen in love with a stranger, a magical stranger who had saved her life and left her. The motives had been honorable for one; they were unfathomable for the other. Maybe it was infatuation.

Liar.
“I heard you the first time,” she muttered into the soft angora brushing her lips. She was losing her mind. It could only be love, which didn’t solve anything.

He’d scaled one of her secrets, but not the worst by far. Nothing could compare with her guilt for leaving Paul, hurt and bleeding, on the roof of the Dubois villa—unless it was her shame for being there in the first place. Not even Elise knew exactly what had happened that night.

Chantal had been sixteen, and working with the absolute confidence that only the very young or the naïve have at their disposal. Like the gypsy children picking pockets in Rome, half of her safety came from being a minor, a time-honored prerequisite for a Cochard’s first time out. If she had been able to get Paul off the roof, she would have taken the fall. He would have let her; he’d seen his eighteenth birthday the previous week. They’d been a team, equal partners, and she had abandoned him.

Partners.
A heavy sigh blew from her lips, and her hand trailed down to the lock again. Foolish games, she thought, but this time it opened. She picked up the black backpack, carried it to the kitchen, and emptied the contents onto the counter. Out of her junk drawer she pulled a soldering iron and a miniature tool kit. While she waited for the iron to heat up, she dismantled the mirror, putting all the bits and pieces in the drawer. It looked like anybody else’s junk drawer, a lot of loose screws and odds and ends. The mirror itself slipped back into a wooden frame that proclaimed her cabin as “Home Sweet Home.” She tapped the sixteen-penny nails back in place and rehung the frame over the sink.

With the soldering iron she turned the contact rig into a wire and two nondescript pieces of metal. All of it went in the drawer along with the tube of gel. She picked up the stethoscope and looked around her cabin. The whole place was a junk drawer, a mishmash of antique furniture, rugs, and . . . well, just plain junk. She carried the stethoscope over to the coatrack by the front door and hung it there. Hidden things were always more dangerous than the exposed.

Like her secrets. The slate roof had been wet, and slicker than the black ice on Highway 82 in the dead of winter. It had taken all her strength to drag Paul back under the eaves, where he wouldn’t fall off. She’d stayed until he begged her to go, and, as she’d run her feet had slipped in his trail of blood.

“Paul!” The hoarse cry ripped from her throat as lightning cracked the sky. Her eyes meeting his through a wall of gray rain. She clung to the tiles with icy fingers, her feet straddling the high peak of the roof.

He was slumped against a wall, his body a crumpled shadow of black against the white stucco. “Go, Chan, go . . . please . . .” Thunder rolled over his words, sweeping them away on the wind.

And she ran, ran as though the hounds of hell were on her heels, balancing on the crest of the roof and building speed for the leap to the garden house.

He had begged her to leave and never followed through with forgiveness. She didn’t have the right to forgive herself, and she didn’t expect Jaz to deliver absolution or live with her burden. She could take his loving, but not his love, not with secrets that couldn’t be shared. If he came back, if he even offered her his love.

She checked her watch. Six o’clock. He’d been gone for four hours. Four hours of flight could put him anywhere. But she only had an hour and a half to get where she needed to be, finish her business, and make her date at the Hotel Orleans.

* * *

If Aspen had a dive bar, Snaps would have been it. Aspen did and Snaps was. The wood floor was scarred from the thousands of ski boots that had clomped over it. The heavy wood picnic-style tables were equally scarred—for the same reason.

Chantal sat down at the rustic bar, in full view of the door and the boisterous crowd. In a sea of bulky sweaters, colorful parkas, and sleek one-piece ski suits, she stood out, claiming the glamour corner for her own with just her coat. She hadn’t changed her dress, but she had repaired the Gibson hairstyle Jaz had so passionately destroyed.

“Slumming, Chantal?” the bartender asked. He brushed a pile of peanut shells to the floor before laying a cocktail napkin on the bar.

“Hi, Rick. I’ll have—” she started to say brandy, but changed her mind, “soda with a squeeze. What are you doing here? The other bartenders at the Crazy Horse get tired of your stealing their women?”

“Can I help it if I’m irresistible?” The green-eyed blond flashed her a bright smile.

“Save it for the out-of-towners, Rick,” she countered with a small grin.

“No secrets in this town. Keep mine and I’ll spring for your soda.”

“Deal. Have you seen Kyle Dawson tonight? I’m supposed to meet him here.”

Rick put the soda gun back in its holder and set her glass on the napkin. “You
are
slumming. Or have you picked up some nasty habits I don’t know about?”

“No habits. He’s leaving for Cannes in the morning. He’s going to take a birthday present to my father for me.” Weeks ago she’d thought it over very carefully, looked at all her options, and decided on a private courier. Kyle was as private as they came, and he was headed in the right direction at the right time. He was also used to expensive cargo—expensive and dangerous. She was a lightweight, compared to his other clients. There were few secrets in a small town, and if you didn’t count the tourists, Aspen was a very small town.

He just walked in.” Rick nodded at the front door.

“Thanks for the soda.” Chantal picked up her glass and the small, carefully wrapped package she’d brought, and walked over to the table where Kyle had sat down.

Half an hour later she walked out of Snaps and headed for the Hotel Orleans. All she had to do was get through dinner and then she’d go home and cry herself to sleep. No, she wouldn’t. She’d only cried herself to sleep once, and things weren’t that bad tonight. The loneliness was worse, but the fears weren’t as great.

Six

The Hotel Orleans was a historical landmark in Aspen, a holdover from the boomtown days. Small by modern standards, it emanated the intimacy and craftsmanship of a bygone era. Dark polished paneling added a lush contrast to the white marble foyer. Heavily scrolled archways led to the dining room on the right and the saloon on the left. A sweeping balustrade curved to the second-floor suites, supported by lightly veined marble columns.

Chantal turned left into the bar, knowing there would be an empty table in the farthest corner. Like Elise, Roger was a creature of habit and influence. She slipped into the red leather banquette and shrugged out of her fur coat, keeping the shoulders draped over hers.

A cocktail waitress dressed like a dance-hall girl who’d run out of material sashayed over. ‘‘This table is reserved,” she said with an imperious toss of her brunette curls.

“I’ll tell Mr. Neville how protective you were of his interests, dear,” Chantal replied dryly. She wasn’t in the mood for pretentious cocktail waitresses wearing too much makeup and not enough clothes. I’ll have soda and lime.” She’d already discarded getting drunk as a way to spend the evening.

The drink was delivered a few minutes later with just enough force to slop it over the top, but not enough to make a mess. It was a very subtle gesture, and Chantal ignored it completely—on the outside. On the inside she muttered a few snide comments, realizing even as she did that her own emotions were what had her on edge. Battling wits with a witless waitress shouldn’t even be on her priority list, let alone in the number-one slot.

She took a long swallow of her drink and lowered the glass. Okay, lady, you win, she thought, propping her elbow on the table and resting her chin on her fist. It was tonic, not soda, a not-so-subtle gesture. The day was holding true all the way into the night, all the way down the tubes.

Unlike at Snaps, her coat was no novelty in the Hotel Orleans. Furs more expensive than hers were sprinkled liberally around the saloon, which was fine with her. All she wanted to do was fade into the woodwork, close her eyes, and drift into oblivion. She managed the last two for a few minutes before her reverie was broken.