Baddest Bad Boys (19 page)

When she didn’t say anything, he raised a brow, shook his head—definitely disapproving. “If that torch you’re carrying for McNeil is still lit, he damn well better be worth it. Because if you don’t turn over what you know—and quick—you might find yourself named as a co-conspirator and be responsible for returning your share of the funds.”

Tommi felt her eyes widen. “What are you talking about?”

“That’s the way it works. So you’d best make up your mind what you like best, your bank account or your boyfriend.”

“Boyfriend!” She would have leaped from the bed—if she’d had any clothes on. “Give me my robe!” She pointed to it, her exhaustion replaced by a powerful surge of anger.

Mac tossed it to her, and she shrugged into it, reaching under the covers to pull it down before getting up. For all her precautions, she knew Mac got a generous view of her thighs.

So mad she didn’t care, she shot to her feet and poked a finger in his unyielding chest. “First off, Mr. Smug and Self-righteous, Reid is a liar and a thief—not my boyfriend. And second, I didn’t go to the police because Del Designs is a family business. Reid is stealing from Paul McNeil, his own father. And if it was my family, I’d want to handle it my way. Paul lost his wife last year. And now, to hear about Reid—” She closed her eyes against her friend’s pain. “I’ve worked with Paul for over six years. He’s been good to me. He deserves the chance to deal with his son in his own way.”

Mac took her finger from his chest, cocked his head. “So why didn’t you go to him?”

“He’s in Europe on a buying trip, and I can’t bring myself to tell him about this mess over the phone. It would be cruel.” She sat heavily on the edge of the bed, shoved her hair back with both hands, held it there, and pressed her palms against her temples. Anger gone, bone-weariness rushed front and center. She refused to cry, refused to give in to the confusion and bottomless fatigue—the fear of what Reid might do. “Oh, God, I don’t know…maybe I should call him, maybe things will be an even bigger mess by the time he gets back. Especially if Reid didn’t lie and there are other people involved.”

Mac took her hands from her head, held them between his own. “I doubt there are. Embezzling’s generally a loner’s game. Probably just his way of scaring the crap out of you.” He touched her hair, pushed some wild strands off her forehead and secured them behind her ear. Then he lifted her chin, made her face him. “Get some sleep. It’s two in the morning—there’s nothing we can do about it now. We’ll talk it over when we’re both awake.”

He pulled her to her feet and threw the covers back on the bed. “Get in,” he instructed.

Nearly asleep on her feet, Tommi nodded, started to drop her robe.

“Whoa.” He grasped her hands. “A man can only take so much.”

His voice seemed muted and distant. “I forgot you were here,” she said, not completely sure it was true.

“Thanks for the ego boost.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets, glowered at her, then jerked his dark head toward the door. “My room is down the hall. I’ll leave the door open. I’m a light sleeper, so I’ll hear you if there’s a problem.”

Under the covers, she shimmied out of the robe and let it slide to the floor. Mac draped it over the foot of the bed.

Her head nestled deep in the soft pillow, her eyelids weighed down with lack of sleep, she said, “Right now the only problem I can think of is how I’m ever going to leave your bed, Mac.” Then she promptly fell asleep.

 

Mac wasn’t so lucky. Between the rage of the storm battering his window and a cock that felt as if someone had loaded it with hot steel, he prowled the house for hours.

Close to 9 A.M., the storm took a break. It hovered offshore in a line of black clouds that told him it hadn’t finished its dirty work yet. He decided to use the break to check out Night Waters, his 35-foot power boat, to see how she weathered the night.

Anything to get out of the house and away from the woman sleeping down the hall.

He rolled his head to ease the growing tension in his body. It didn’t work.

Need slammed into him like a well-aimed punch when his sorry excuse for a mind replayed that glimpse of breasts and thighs he’d caught last night; the dark pink areola ringing a jutting nipple begging for his tongue, the long, lean legs leading the way to heaven—or hell, depending on a man’s point of view.

But, damn it, right now he’d take either if it meant going in hard and deep—making Tommi climax, come soft and wet under his hand, his mouth…

He cursed, sealed his eyes tight.

After last night, if there were justice in this world, he should be anointed for not being all over her. Which he damn well would have been if she’d dropped that skimpy robe of hers.

Convinced it was going to be a long, frustrating few days, he headed for the shower.

A few minutes later, when he passed her door, he stopped and listened. Nothing. He felt a stab of guilt about the unwaveringly carnal direction of his thoughts. He’d bet sex wasn’t on Smith’s mind. Guessing at the extent of her exhaustion, she’d probably sleep until noon.

Fine with him.

Because if there was one thing he knew for certain, Hugh hadn’t sent her up here so Mac could fulfill an adolescent fantasy. She was here for his protection, not sex. Plus, he reminded himself, the lady had a lot on her mind.

The morning was bitter cold, and Mac quickly discovered his visit to Night Waters was well timed. One of her lines was free and another frayed.

He had work to do—thank God—and he got right to it.

 

“McNeil?” Borg had given up on his cell phone and was now crammed into the smallest phone booth in North America in the rattiest, smelliest gas station this side of the Pacific. “You owe me. And I ain’t lettin’ you forget it.”

“Where are you?”

“Close Bay, a godforsaken place on a godforsaken island in a godforsaken rain forest—that’s where I am.” Borg was pissed, even more pissed when he heard McNeil pause and take a drink of what he imagined was hot, strong coffee. He’d kill for that right now. Hell, he’d kill just to get this damn job over with.

“More to the point, where’s Smith?” McNeil asked, his voice slick as a whore’s tit. “You didn’t lose her, did you?”

“No, I didn’t lose her. I slept in my damn car under her damn nose, but I didn’t lose her. Rained all night. I’m fuckin’ deaf from the sound of it, but I didn’t lose her, McNeil, which means you better be ready to flash up that checkbook of yours and write a pile of numbers.”

“You’ll get your money.”

“Yeah, so you keep sayin’.” Borg took a pull on his smoke.

“Can you see her now?”

“No, I can’t see her now!” he spat into the phone. “I’m in a damn phone booth calling you, because my fuckin’ cell phone won’t work. This place is in the middle of hell’s asshole.”

McNeil’s voice was lethally low when he said, “You don’t want to do this job, Borg, I can find someone who will.”

Borg tossed his smoke into the muck outside the booth. He wanted to get in his car and drive back to Seattle, tell him to stuff his damn job, but he knew if he did, McNeil would stiff him for sure. And he needed the green.

As his tire iron-wielding bookie took pains to remind him.

“Look.” He kept his voice flat. “There’s one road in and one road out—the last eight or ten miles is nothing but a cow trail. I go in there, get stuck, and it’s game over. If she leaves she has to travel this road. I’ll pick her up then.”

“Where the hell is she, anyway?”

“At a private fishing camp. With some guy”—he fumbled in his pocket for the piece of paper he’d written on—“named Mac Fleming. A big shot, the locals tell me. Lots of bucks. Lots of smarts. Owns some TV stations or something. Looks like she’s got herself a safe, warm nest and ain’t planning to leave anytime soon.”

“Shit!”

“You want I should do something?”

Borg sure as hell hoped not, because right now all he wanted was a room in that roach motel he’d spotted down the road. It probably had a twelve-inch TV, soap the size of a cereal flake, and towels you could spit through, but right now it looked five-star to him.

But the silence on the other end of the line made him uneasy. He could damn well hear the bastard’s mind clicking.

“I want you to kill her, Borg. You do that and you’ve got a ten-grand deposit into that empty bank account of yours.”

This guy was a wacko. Borg’s mouth went dry. “No way. I’ll watch her tail from now to neverland, but I don’t do spade work. Nope. I ain’t no killer.”

“Fifteen thousand.”

“Same answer.”

He heard a long, irritated sigh. “In that case, you useless bastard, give me directions—specific directions—to where you are. And go back in there and get me a layout of that camp. I’ll need a map. I’ll be there tomorrow. Wait for me. And while you’re waiting, go do some shopping.”

“Shopping? What kind of shopping?”

McNeil laughed, then added in a tone altered for an idiot, “Buy me a rifle, Borg, a great big rifle and lots and lots of pretty bullets. You can do that, can’t you?” His voice hardened. “And keep an eye on that bitch. Do not—I repeat—do not let her leave there. She moves, you move. Got that? Then you call me. It turns out dear old dad is coming home early and I’m fresh out of time.”

 

It was noon when Mac went back to the house. Plan? Get back to those files he’d brought. As a lust antidote, work was all he had.

When he stepped into the house, the aroma of frying bacon greeted him. Tommi was in the kitchen behind the long counter, fluttering between cupboards and pans. Damned if she wasn’t wearing that damn robe. It covered her from his eyes, but not his newly activated imagination. He hung his jacket on a peg, took a breath, and began his monk’s journey.

“Hi,” she said. “Hungry?”

“I’m a thirty-year-old male, and there’s bacon in the air. What’s your bet?”

She smiled. “That’s good because I’ve made enough for a logging crew.”

He watched her move around the compact cooking area, easy and competent, as if she’d worked in it a thousand times. But that was the thing about Tommi; even as a teenager, she was always so in control. Yet, she had this…sexually attainable look. Had to be all that bed-mussed blond hair, those smoky eyes of hers. But looking at her now, tense and vulnerable, Mac wondered for the first time how much of it was a mirage, brought on by wishful male thinking after one look at that centerfold-class body of hers.

Maybe he should ask Hugh. At that thought his stomach rolled. They might be brothers, but banter about sexual conquests wasn’t in the relationship mix.

Tommi must have felt his eyes on her because she shot him a look from over her shoulder, and from that point on, her movements in the kitchen were a lot less competent, more along the lines of a major klutz.

When she came close to burning herself pouring coffee, he got off his stool and went to take the coffeepot from her hand.

“Thanks,” she said. “But you can sit right back down. Everything’s ready.” She loaded a plate for him—eggs, bacon and a pile of perfectly browned hash browns, then made a smaller version for herself.

He took both plates to the table.

After a minute or two of silence, she said, “About last night. I’ve been thinking.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I don’t want to call the police about this thing until I talk to my boss—in person.”

“You’d be smart to do that sooner, rather than later.”

She stopped eating, put her fork down. He heard her take a deep breath, let it out. “Maybe so, but he’ll be back next week. I’m going to wait.” She lifted her eyes to his. “The thing is…I’d like to stay here until he does—get back, I mean.” Her voice went up on the final word, nervous, fearful. “Will that be okay?”

He shoved his plate back and took in her anxious expression. “This Reid guy—he’s bad news, isn’t he?”

She hesitated, then said, “Yes. I think he might be very bad news.”

He touched her robe-encased arm where the bruising lay hidden under soft cotton. “He did this.”

She nodded.

“Does he have any idea where you are?”

“No. Thanks to Hugh. God, I don’t know what I’d have done without him.”

Mac narrowed his gaze to her eyes. “And Hugh? What does he think about your being here? With me.”

She looked confused. “He was the one who suggested it. I thought you knew that.” She got up, took her half-eaten breakfast to the sink, then turned, leaning one hip against the counter and crossing her arms under her breasts. “When I called him for help, I’d hoped he’d lend me his cabin on Whidbey, but Veronica was there with her mother.” She grinned, a slight crooked grin that flashed in her eyes. “Making, as Hugh said, ‘more endless arrangements.’”

It was Mac’s turn to be confused. “What are you talking about? Who’s Veronica? And what arrangements?”