I'm No Angel (16 page)

The confounded woman had the nerve to climb off of him, off the bed, and then smirk.

His eyes narrowed while he did his best not to grin. “I'll get you for that.”

Angel laughed. “You have to catch me first.”

Tom bounded off the bed, but Angel was far faster than him. She raced out of the bedroom and down the stairs, with him hot on her trail. She threw open the French doors leading to the pool and was halfway there when he caught her and twirled her around.

He trapped her in his embrace and kissed her lips. They were hot and her laughter echoed in his mouth, then turned to moans as his tongue dipped inside.

Her hands stretched up around his neck and he lifted her. Her ankles locked around his back and he carried her to a marble bench and laid her down.

The marble was cold and hard. On the other hand, he was on fire and just as hard as the stone, and he entered her with one deep trust.

And then he came to a sudden, jerking halt. “Shit.”

Angel's eyes flew open. “What? Are you hurt? Is something wrong?”

“We seem to have forgotten all about protection.”

She cradled his cheeks in her hands. “I haven't got anything you need to worry about.”

“Me neither.”

“And the timing's okay.”

“You're sure?”

“I know my body.”

He tried not to worry. He tried to concentrate on just how good and tight and hot and slick she
felt. And he thrust again. “I'm getting to know it pretty well, too, and I like it a lot.”

“Shut up and just make love to me.”

And he did.

 

Angel knew she should leave. It was nearly seven in the morning and she'd told her dad she'd drop by to make breakfast for him and her mom. It was a ritual she performed three or four times a week to give her father a break, to give him someone to talk with, and, for her own sake, to maybe catch a glimpse of the mother she used to know, the mom who remembered her daughter's face, even if she couldn't always remember her name.

Instead, she sat on the piano bench, tucked between Tom's legs, the warm bare skin of his chest pressed against her back, clothed in the red spandex dress she'd donned after they'd made love and taken a quick dip in the pool.

Tom's strong, darkly tanned fingers were a sharp contrast against the white and black piano keys. They were the hands of an alligator wrestler, a snake charmer, callused and rough and tanned from long days in the sun. Yet he played Beethoven and Chopin from memory, as if the music were a part of his soul.

Tom kissed her neck lightly. “What's on your agenda after you have breakfast with your parents this morning?”

“I need to talk with Frederike's butler about what we witnessed last night—which was pretty much nothing. I've got photos to deliver to another client, I have to prepare for a court case I need to testify at tomorrow, and make my every-
other-day meeting with Holt Hudson about the gala.”

Tom's fingers stilled on the piano. He kissed Angel's neck. “Why don't you take me with you?”

She shook her head. “I don't think so.”

“Why not?”

“I told you already. I don't trust you around Holt.”

“That was before you knew me.”

“Just because I trust you around
me
doesn't mean I want to take you into Holt Hudson's home and let you confront him about something that's best forgotten.”

Tom sighed in frustration. “Holt Hudson might think it's best forgotten, but I need to know the truth about that night.”

“The truth was published in the newspapers. The truth was in the police report.”

“All lies.”

“I read every word of it and—”

Tom's laughter cut off her words. “You got a copy of the police report?”

“I told you yesterday that I was going to check out your background. I might not have gotten around to finding out anything about you, but I was lucky enough to get a copy of the police report off of microfiche—and I did find out what happened that night.”

“I told you that you could ask me anything you wanted to ask and I'd give you the lowdown.”

“You can't give me the lowdown about something you know very little about.”

“I know the police report is a piece of crap.”

“I read it, Tom. Your dad's fingerprints were on
the combination lock leading into the safe where Holt Hudson keeps his valuables. The same fingerprints were
inside
the safe where Holt kept
The Embrace
, and they were also on Carlotta Hudson's headboard.”

“I read the same report and I know exactly what it says. But there's got to be some other explanation for those fingerprints. My dad and Holt were friends. He probably went into that safe on a lot of different occasions.”

“Not according to Holt. Besides, Tom, there is no explanation for his fingerprints being on Carlotta's headboard unless—”

“He
wasn't
having an affair with her.”

“Damn it, Tom. Let's not talk about this. Let's not ruin what was such a perfect night.”

“You're the one who got a copy of the police report. You're the one who isn't able to understand my need to talk to Holt.”

“Your father's blood was on Carlotta's bed.” The muscles in Angel's neck stiffened. Her jaw felt tight. “If he hadn't been guilty, why did he run? Why didn't he go to a hospital after he was shot? Why didn't he call the police?”

Tom shoved his hands through his hair. “I told you before. If I knew the answers to those things I wouldn't have any need to see Holt. He has the answers, and I'm going to get them from him whether you help me or not.”

“I'm not going to help you.”

Tom shook his head, exhausted, frustrated, and hurt. “I should have known you wouldn't help me. I should have known—”

“Wait a minute.” Angel's eyes were cold. Nar
rowed. “Is that what this whole thing between you and me has been about? Is that the reason you followed me that first night, so you could get close to me, so you could get into my pants and make me want you…so that I'd end up so grateful for your lovemaking that I'd do anything for you?”

“Yeah,” Tom muttered. “I thought you might help me, but—”

“But nothing,” Angel threw back. “You used me, and I fell for it.”

“You fell for me just like I fell for you.”

“You haven't fallen for me. This was all a game to you, just like I was a game for Dagger.”

“Do you really think I spent the night screwing you instead of making love to you?”

Angel fought to keep the tears from sliding down her cheeks. “That's the way it appears.”

“Let me tell you what screwing is, Angel. Screwing someone is claiming to be their best friend, as Holt Hudson did with my father. Screwing someone is shooting them six times for no reason at all.”

Angel grabbed her purse and her shoes and headed for the door. She threw it opened and was halfway out when she looked back at Tom. “You might as well have shot me in the back, too, Tom. Because everything I was beginning to feel for you is dead.”

“Y
ou look like hell,” Jed Devlin said to his daughter when Angel opened the screen door and stepped into the kitchen in the small four-bedroom home in West Palm Beach where she and her brothers had grown up. “Rough night?”

“Yeah,” Angel said, but didn't offer any explanation as she took a mug out of the ever-present dish drainer on the countertop and poured herself some coffee. “If you don't mind, I'm going to use your shower, bum a T-shirt, and then I'll come back and fix breakfast.”

“I can do breakfast.”

“You burn the bacon. I don't.” She smiled and gave her dad a peck on the cheek, then walked past him and into the laundry room. She'd come here straight from Tom's knowing her dad would worry if she were late. She hadn't even bothered to change clothes, but now wanted out of the clothes she'd worn since last night. Grabbing one of her dad's freshly dried Sacramento Kings T-shirts and a pair of his jogging shorts, she dis
appeared into the small bathroom that she and her three brothers had shared.

She twisted the knob in the shower and cold water burst out of the nozzle. It would take a good minute for it to heat up, and while it did, she stripped out of her god-awful red dress and panties and stared at herself in the mirror.

She
did
look like hell. Her eyes were red from anger and tears. Her hair was a mass of tangles, as if a mouse had nested in it. Mascara and eyeliner smudged the tender skin beneath her eyes. Her lips were swollen and, oh, God, she had a hickey on her neck.

She rested her forehead against the cold mirror. What the hell had she done? She'd spent the past five years of her life making sure she was always in control, making sure that no man ever again got the better of her, and then she'd tumbled into bed with the first man who didn't run away from her when she froze up at the onset of sex—only to find out that he'd stuck with her because he had more on his mind than making love.

He'd wanted to use her.

What a fool she'd been.

When the mirror was steamed over, she climbed under the hot, pulsating water and scrubbed away a night's worth of being screwed.

She'd never again let that happen.

Never.

 

Her father raised his eyes from the newspaper spread over the table when Angel walked back into the kitchen. Her hair was wrapped on top of her head in a fluffy green towel, the back of the
T-shirt was wet where water still dribbled from her hair, and even though she had her dad's running shorts cinched up, they rested low on her hips.

Jed Devlin was a big man. Six-four and a good two hundred sixty pounds. But he was as solidly built as he was solid in character. An ex-private investigator who'd worked hard at a job he'd loved so he could support the family he cherished.

And he'd never screwed anyone.

“How's Mom this morning?” Angel asked, as she took a carton of eggs from the fridge.

“I don't know.” Jed took a swallow of coffee. “She didn't want any help getting dressed, got angry when I mentioned that her dress zipped up the back instead of the front, and before I came out here she was putting on makeup so she'd look pretty for Ted Cushman. That's the kid who took her to the senior prom.”

Angel cracked an egg and dumped the insides into a bowl. “Want me to look in on her?”

“Let's wait and see what happens once the scent of bacon and eggs fills the house. If my guess is right, she'll know you're here and want to see you.”

“She thought I was her mom two days ago.”

“I'm hoping today will be a better day.”

Jed got up from the table, turned the fire on under the big frying pan on the stove, and dropped some cut-up strips of bacon into the skillet. “Why don't I give the bacon a try? If I get close to burning it, holler at me.”

“Okay, Dad.”

They worked side by side in silence for nearly a
minute before Jed angled a questioning glance at his daughter. “Gonna tell me where you were last night that called for wearing a hooker dress?”

“The Tropical Lei.”

“I hope you were there for business.”

“Come on, Dad, you know I wouldn't be there for any other reason.”

“Were you spying on anyone I know?”

“Frederike LeVien. Her butler's worried about the company she's been keeping.”

Jed laughed. “How you can stand to work around those Palm Beach types is beyond me. You should have kept the business in West Palm Beach where normal people live.”

“The pay's better over there.”

“You live in an apartment and it's over a pampered pooch boutique.”

“Yeah, but I drive a Jag, I wear designer clothes, and I'm socking away money for a rainy day—something you taught me to do.”

“Well, at least you listened to something I had to say when you were growing up.”

“She didn't listen when we told her not to marry Dagger.” Angel spun around when she heard the familiar voice.

Trace Devlin, Angel's oldest brother by five minutes—Ty was eight minutes younger than her and Hunt was the baby, delivered twelve minutes later—pushed through the swinging door that led from the small living room to the kitchen.

“What are you doing in town?” Angel asked her brother.

Trace, all six-foot-four of him, kissed Angel's
forehead, grabbed a carton of orange juice out of the fridge, and took a drink, not bothering to get a glass.

“I'm heading to Miami right after breakfast,” Trace said, looking at his watch. “I've got a meeting at eleven with a possible witness to a cold case I'm working on. A guy I've been looking for for over a year now and with any luck he won't flake on me.”

“You weren't going to come by and see me?” Angel asked.

“I knew you'd be here to fix breakfast, otherwise I would have gone out to eat.” Trace winked at their father. “You know Dad has a bad habit of burning the bacon.”

“At least I can put a meal together. That's more than you ever bothered to learn,” Jed tossed back, his booming laughter ringing through the house. Alzheimer's may have changed the future Jed had always envisioned for himself and his wife, but he refused to give in to the disease that was ravaging the woman he loved. Laughter and his family got him through the worst of times.

“Are you going to see Ty while you're in Miami?” Angel asked, grating cheddar cheese to throw into the omelet she was making.

“If I get a chance,” Trace said. “And before you ask about Hunt, I saw him in Manhattan a couple of days ago. We shot some hoops, then went out for beer.”

“He didn't say anything about coming to the gala, did he?” Angel asked, slapping Trace's hand when he dug into the bowl of cheddar she'd just grated.

“Hunt doesn't tell me anything more about what he's done or plans to do than he tells anyone else.”

“He's a CIA operative,” Jed said. “I'd bet my bottom dollar on it.”

“I'm sticking with hit man,” Trace stated. “Seems to me someone gets killed everywhere he goes.”

Angel tuned out the banter between her brother and dad, and just took comfort that she had a close-knit family, even though Hunt was a bit of an enigma.

She beat the eggs with a whisk that her mother had used eons ago when cooking for her family had been one of her favorite pastimes. Her father stirred the bacon in the pan, making sure it didn't burn, and Trace set the table, something he must have learned after he left home.

When they were little, the boys were taught to be boys and Angel was taught to be a girly-girl, although that was the last thing she wanted. Trace, Ty, and Hunt were men in the making. It was their job to change tires and mow the lawn and lift heavy things. Angel had the pleasure of cooking and being sent off to Portia Alexander's Academy to become a fine young woman of impeccable breeding because God knows Jed Devlin wanted his tomboy to grow into a lady—not follow in his footsteps as she'd always threatened, and become a P.I.

Jed ended up with a rebel for a daughter, an eighteen-year-old who met a good-looking guy on the flight home from London, and brought the unemployed, tattooed knife thrower with a pen
chant for B.S. home to meet her family. They despised him right off the bat, but she was in love, full of starry-eyed dreams of romance.

Four days later, wearing cutoffs, a tank top, and flip-flops, she and Dagger stood in front of the Palm Beach County Clerk with no family members at their side. She carried a single red rose and Dagger had had her name tattooed on his chest, right below his devil tattoo. He gave her a ring he'd picked up at a pawnshop—something she found out on one of those horrid nights when they lay together in bed—and she married Dagger Zane, for better or for worse.

Seven years later she'd divorced him. It wasn't until then that she told her mom, dad, and brothers the truth. It wasn't until then that she'd accepted the truth herself—Dagger had never loved her; he'd merely used her.

The bastard.

Angel whacked an onion in half with one of her mom's extra-sharp kitchen knives, and went to town chopping the thing into little bits and pieces.

Her dad frowned; Trace wrapped his arm around her neck. “Got something you want to talk about?”

“Nope.”

She whacked the onion again. It was amazing how much frustration a woman could get rid of while chopping food.

“I heard through the rumor mill that Dagger's in town,” Trace said, putting the knives, forks, and spoons on the wrong side of the plates as he set the table.

Bitterness rose in Angel's throat as she whacked a bell pepper. “Yeah, and I had the misfortune of running into him last night.”

Trace's eyes narrowed. “He didn't ask you for money or try anything with you, did he?”

“Hell, no,” Angel blurted. “If that man ever touches me again, I'll gut him.”

“That's my girl.” Jed dumped the crisp, slightly burned bacon onto a plate lined with paper towels. “If you want, you can stick around here with your mom this morning and Trace and I will go have a talk with that asshole you married.”

“I don't want either one of you tangling with him. You did it once and you all ended up in jail overnight. God only knows what would happen if you got into it with him again.”

“So what's he doing here?” Trace asked.

“Working as a walker.”

“What woman in her right mind would want to go anywhere with that son-of-a-bitch?” Jed asked, dumping the bacon grease into an old coffee can.

“He's tall and handsome,” Angel said, striving to think of any other good qualities Dagger might have—but they were very few and far between. “I guess he can also be rather charming.”

“He's got a goddamned devil tattooed on his chest.” Jed's anger rang through the kitchen. “He took your house, he took your money, and he would have taken the business you built without any help from him if—”

“Can we change the subject?” Angel asked, but had the feeling her father hadn't yet finished his tirade, and she couldn't blame him. Dagger Zane
had hurt Jed's daughter, and he'd never let the guy forget it.

Jed sighed heavily, then took a swig of his coffee. “Why I ever hired that worthless, good-for-nothing sack of shit is beyond me.”

“You hired him because I asked you to. And I'm the one who married him in spite of all your warnings. But it's over and done with, Dad. I'm divorced. He can't get another penny from me.”

“Yeah, but—”

Angel couldn't miss the grim look on her dad's face. “But what, Dad?”

“Yeah,” Trace said. “That
but
had an ominous sound to it that I don't like.”

Jed pulled an envelope out of his back pocket. “I was debating on whether or not to talk with you about this this morning.”

“What is it?” Trace asked.

Jed pulled the piece of stationery out of the envelope. “It seems Dagger has decided to sue me over the broken nose I gave him.”

“What?” Trace's eyes narrowed. “That was five years ago.”

“Yeah, but his nose is crooked and the asshole says an extremely wealthy woman turned down his marriage proposal because of it.”

“That's the most asinine thing I've ever heard,” Trace said, snatching the piece of paper from his dad's hand.

“It's a nuisance suit, nothing more,” Jed added, “but I haven't got the money for an attorney.”

“If Dagger thinks he can get away with this,” Angel said, “he's sorely mistaken.”

“Dagger always gets away with crap,” Jed said.
“He pulled all sorts of shit on you and the only punishment he ever got was a beating from me and your brothers.”

“He's not going to get away with any crap this time,” Angel stated. “He's living on his boat and I know where he keeps it and—”

“I don't want you messing with him on your own,” Jed said.

“I don't want either one of you messing with him,” Trace added. “I'll have a talk with him after I go down to Miami.”

Angel sighed. “I need to take care of this now—the sooner the better.”

“It can wait, Angel,” Trace stated. “I'll come back—”

“I don't want either of you getting into the middle of this. Trace—you've got to leave for Miami right after breakfast and I know you can't stay away from work long. Dad—you've got Mom to take care of. And me, well, Dagger knows damn good and well that I can use a knife. He also knows damn good and well that if he tries anything funny with me, I'll cut his heart out.”

“Maybe we should just pay him off,” Jed said. “Get him off our backs.”

“If we pay Dagger off,” Trace said, “he'll find another reason to come back for more.”

“No one's paying Dagger a penny, Dad.” Angel shook her head. “I should have pressed charges when I was married to him. Should have made him serve jail time for what he did to me, but I didn't. That was my mistake, and I'm not going to make any more mistakes where he's concerned.”