Christmas Romance (Best Christmas Romances of 2013) (9 page)

“I feel the same way. You’d better hurry. Cleo needs you.”

He did the most unexpected thing; he lifted her hand and brushed his lips across the top. When she pulled her hand back, he took her face in his hands and brushed those same lips over hers. He trailed those lips down the side of her neck, and then stepped back.

“I’ll be seeing you, sweet Halo,” he said before he left.

Man, he had smoking hot lips.
Her spine shot sparklers to her brain.

Chapter Two

The minute Rich left, Halo rushed into Pemsky’s office and pushed and pulled on all of his file drawers. She’d hoped he’d forgotten to lock them, but no such luck. She hadn’t considered how she’d get into his keyboard tray to get his key. Her heel caught on a loose carpet thread and twisted her ankle and bumped the desk with her hip. “Darn, darn. That hurt!”

When she hit the desk, Pemsky’s keyboard tray popped open an inch. Bingo! Using the key, she carefully searched through all of Pemsky’s files, trying not to disturb anything.

Halo scoured through records labeled; business meals, business travel, and business taxes. And then, under business equipment, she hit pay dirt—records of all the money transfers from the stolen blue ribbon dogs to his personal bank account at Seattle Mutual Bank. In another folder, labeled miscellaneous business expenses, were payment transfers to a local bank account in a name Halo recognized, Kimberly Henderson. The WWDS had her listed as one of the blue ribbon dog handlers and the payments coincided with the thefts. As a handler, Ms. Henderson would never be questioned about leaving with a dog.

Halo quickly made copies of all the documents and tucked them into her bag. With all this incriminating evidence, the Western Washington Dog Shows President would be able to question Ms. Henderson and hopefully she’d incriminate Pemsky.

After Halo put all the files back, she heard the front office door open. Crap, why hadn’t she locked the door? On her next assignment she’d need a checklist to include the obvious: lock the door when you’re rifling through things you’re not supposed to. She stepped out of Pemsky’s office and walked to her desk.

Mr. Pemsky stood in the reception area, his face the color of freshly cut beets.

“What the hell were you doing in my office, girly?” he demanded.

“Nothing… I’m just straightening things up for you. What are you doing out of the hospital? You should sit down. You don’t look very good.”

He stomped his foot and sweat dripped from his face.

“I’m fine and I’ll take care of my office. Stay the hell out of there,” he huffed.

He pushed Halo out of his way and her stupid heel caught on the carpet again and this time she couldn’t catch herself. She fell and hit the back of her her head on the wall. “Ow!”

Talk about seeing stars
.

Pemsky shook his head at her. He didn’t even look her way as he walked into his office. She tried to get up, but her head spun.

Two minutes later he stormed back out of his office. She still sat on the floor with her head in her hands, trying to muffle the pounding.

“Did you get into my files?” he yelled.

“No. I straightened your desk and moved your chair back, is all,” she calmly replied.

He panted and sweated profusely, and used the wall for support. Halo didn’t want him to collapse on her. She turned to the side and tried to lift herself up on her knees, but he reached down and grabbed the lapel of her jacket and shook her.

“You stupid girl. Stay out of my office or you’ll regret the day you were born. If I find out you’re lying to me, I’ll come looking for you. Do you understand?” Pemsky threatened.

“Yes… yes… I understand.” She nodded even though the motion hurt her head.

He let go of her and clutched his chest, her cue to scramble to her feet. He terrified her and she didn’t want him to think she’d be back in the morning.

“Mr. Pemsky, I was offered a permanent job. I left my resignation and keys to the office on your desk.” Without looking in his direction, Halo grabbed her belongings and walked to the door. Before she could leave she heard movement behind her and cringed.

“Missy, you come over here. I want to take a look in that bag of yours.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t feel well. I’m going home now,” she said, and quickly walked out of the office. She looked back then, but the door remained closed.

The stairs weren’t an option with a band of psychotic drummers performing a jam session in her skull. She waited anxiously as the elevator displayed the numbers for each floor. A ding finally announced the elevator’s arrival.

The doors opened and Rich stepped out of the elevator and blocked her escape route, with what smelled like a pepperoni pizza. She put her hand on his chest and pushed. Her wide-eyed look must’ve given him a hint that something could be wrong because he easily moved back into the elevator. The door closed and she moved away from him and slumped against the wall. The drummers were still having a party in her head.

“Halo, are you okay? What’s going on?”

Halo needed to pull herself together and get the files back to Green Hornet Investigations. And her head could use a couple ibuprofens to kill the pain, which she had in the old medal ashtray in her Bug.

“Halo, talk to me,” Rich insisted.

“I’m fine… everything’s fine.” She tried to sound convincing.

“You don’t look fine. You look rattled.”

“What are you doing here?” The pizza box in his hand told her everything she needed to know, but she didn’t want to explain what happened.

“I took a chance you’d still be here, and brought you dinner.”

“That was nice of you, but I’ve got to get going.” Halo pushed the lobby button a few more times—not that it would make the box go any faster, but it felt good.

“You don’t have time for dinner?” he asked.

“No. Sorry. How’s Cleo? Did she have her pups?” She chose a safe topic.

“No, another false alarm. I’ll probably take her to work with me tomorrow. I have a large staff that adores her and can watch over her for me while I work.”

Halo had never ridden in an elevator that took this long to motor up and down. Finally, they arrived at the lobby.

“Thank you for thinking of me, but I can’t stay.” She maneuvered around his large body and smelled pepperoni and cheese. Her stomach protested her leaving with a loud gurgle.

“Are you sure? This is the best pizza ever; you’ll be missing out,” he said, and flaunted the box in front of her nose.

“Rich, I need to concentrate on my career right now. What I wish for and what I can have are two different things. I’m sorry.”

He chuckled, but looked disappointed. She left him in the lobby, hitched her bag up over her shoulder, and walked the two blocks to the garage.

****

Rich couldn’t believe his luck. The one girl that intrigued
him
wasn’t interested in a relationship. Helen, his ex-wife had said she wanted a family, but after two years it became clear she preferred her fourteen-hour days at the office over coming home to their ten acres. When she insisted they sell the acreage and move to the city, he resisted and she divorced him.

Halo seemed sweet, kind, and passionate. Being a tenacious guy, he’d come back with food, but she’d blown him off. Seriously, who could resist a pepperoni pizza from Josh’s Pub?

When he heard the elevator ding and he didn’t turn to see who got off. The guy walked by him with his shoulders slumped then turned, and stopped.

“Hey, I know you. You’re the guy that called for the paramedics,” Pemsky said.

He didn’t want to talk to the guy—especially after the way he’d spoken to Halo.

“Yes, that was me.” Pemsky looked worse now than he did earlier. His hands shook and sweat dripped down the side of his face.

“Did you see where that conniving receptionist went?”

“Excuse me, your receptionist saved your life,” Rich reminded him.

“She didn’t save my life. I had indigestion is all. So, where’d that girly go?” Pemsky demanded.

“I believe she went home, after a very long day at the office. Are you sure indigestion is your only health problem? Do you want me to call someone for you?” Rich asked.

“No. Mind your own business.”

Pemsky leaned back against the wall and wiped his brow with his sleeve.

“Why do you need to find her?” Rich asked.

“I want to talk to her about something, not that’s it any of your business,” he replied, with a sneer on his face.

“Whatever you need, I’m sure that it can wait until tomorrow.” Rich turned to leave.

“She quit, dammit! She walked out on me without notice,” he huffed.

Spittle formed in the corners of his mouth.

“Well, goodbye and take care.” Rich left Pemsky in the lobby of the building.

Curiosity plagued Rich. Halo acted nervous in the elevator. Could Pemsky be the reason? Halo had at least a fifteen minute head start, but it couldn’t hurt to drive around. He might get lucky. She hadn’t looked his way when she drove by the front of the building, but he recognized her in a lemon-yellow Bug.

He’d only gone four blocks when he spotted puffs of blue smoke coming from under the hood of her car in a supermarket parking lot. She looked defeated with an empty jug of water in her hand.

He parked his car and got out. She didn’t notice him at first. She kicked the tires and mumbled something about taking “Sunshine” to the junkyard.

“Halo, looks like Sunshine needs more than a little water to fix her,” he said, and watched her eyes go from frightened to relieved, in a split second.

“You keep turning up in unexpected places. Were you following me?” she asked with suspicion in her voice, and closed the hood of her car.

“No. I hoped I’d run into you again though. Speaking of running into someone, Mr. Pemsky wasn’t too happy that you quit your job. What happened?” Rich waited for her to respond.

“My assignment’s almost over so I can tell you I work undercover for Green Hornet Investigations. The Western Washington Dog Show suspected Pemsky of stealing pedigree dogs and then selling them back to their owners. I found the records implicating him and one of the dog handlers.”

“Pemsky sounds like an unscrupulous guy. You better be careful.”

“I know and he has a terrible temper,” Halo said and looked around.

“You can’t go to the police with these files because you copied them without Pemsky’s permission. What are you going to do with them?”

“The President of WWDS will do the investigation, not us. Their organization is a tight knit group of people and wants to handle this internally—whatever that means.”

“As long as Pemsky doesn’t figure out you were involved. I have a feeling he suspects something, though.”

“I know. He’s a pretty scary guy. When he thought I’d been in his office, he shook me a little.”

“What do you mean he
shook
you?” Rich’s temper simmered at the thought of Pemsky hurting Halo.

“High heels are hard to get used to. I tripped, hit my head, and he grabbed me when I was already on the floor.”

“Halo, let me see it. Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” He gently ran his hand over a good size lump on her head.

“It’s just a bump on the head. I’ll be fine.”

He wanted to throttle Pemsky.

“I need to get these files to Corny, my boss. Unfortunately, my car went capoot on me. I hate to ask, but can you give me a lift? My office isn’t far from here.”

“Yes, of course. So… you’re a private investigator?” That’s the last profession he would’ve pictured Halo in.

“Well, I’m more like a pet detective in training,” Halo explained.

Rich opened the passenger door, took her bag, and laid it on the seat. He moved a step closer, wanting another taste of her lips. He pressed his body into hers, holding her tight against the side of the car.

“What are you doing?” she whispered.

She put her hands on his chest. He didn’t think she intended to push him away.

“Just one taste,” he said as he lowered his head and softly kissed her beautiful lips. He didn’t want to rush her, so he rested his forehead against hers. After a moment, he studied her soulful eyes. She had moisture building, ready to spill over.

“You have the most beautiful eyes. Why do they look sad?”

“Bad timing is all,” she said and looked away.

“Okay, I’ll slow down. Climb in. Which direction are we headed?” he asked, to lighten the mood.

“Green Hornet Investigations is off of Second Avenue near Green Lake. I should call Corny and let her know what happened, but my phone’s dead. I hate it when I forget to charge the darn thing.”

He handed Halo his phone. “Use mine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Make your phone call, Halo.”

“I really appreciate your help. Thank you.” She sniffed the air and turned around in her seat. “Boy, that pizza smells good.”

“I haven’t had a chance to eat a bite yet.” He heard Halo’s stomach growl and grinned at her. “There are napkins in the glove compartment. Please, help yourself.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Halo touch the back of her head and wince. Then she made the phone call.

“Corny, I’ve got the evidence. I’ll be at the office in five minutes. Great. See you then.”

She handed the phone back to him, turned around, and selected a small slice. After eating a couple bites, she put the remainder back in the box and closed the lid.