It Takes Two (15 page)

“Wow,” he said simply.

“And then some.” Their chemistry was wow-worthy even on a typical day. This was
not
a typical day.

“Sorry,” Isabelle said to the shop owner, who was hovering near the doorway leading to the rest of the shop. She looked like she was half fascinated by their display and considering calling their romance book club down here for an impromptu meeting, and half concerned they were going to ramp the meeting up from romance to erotica and shock the little ladies of Mitchell, South Dakota. “We were looking for the way out.”

The woman’s eyes widened.

“Oh, here it is,” Shane said, knocking on the door he had Isabelle pressed against. “Don’t know how I missed that.”

The woman opened her mouth, then shut it again quickly, turned and left them alone.

Isabelle giggled as Shane loosened his grip and let her slide to the floor.

“So what was this about?” he asked.

“Adrenaline, I guess,” Isabelle said. And a great excuse to get his big, strong body against hers. It was kind of dumb and very simple. She lifted a shoulder. “The hero thing does it for me. Even more when I’m the one you’re jumping in to save.”

He grinned. “I chase bad guys every day. Maybe I need to take you to work with me once in a while.” He leaned in. “’Cause the damsel in distress thing does it for
me
.”

She lifted an eyebrow as she adjusted her bra and re-buttoned. “Yeah, I noticed what it was doing to you.”

Shane pulled in a deep breath and stepped back from her. “Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “When I turned back to see that he had a hold of you I swear to god my blood froze…” He trailed off, seeming at a loss for words. Then he reached out, cupped the back of her neck, pulled her close and kissed her again.

This time, though, it was sweet. So sweet.

Shane Kelley didn’t do sweet very often, but when he did it was…devastating.

When he lifted his head a few moments later, Isabelle blinked against the sudden, unexpected moisture in her eyes. She should tell him the truth. It was a game, he had nothing to worry about, there was no danger. But damn, the fact that she might get a few more of
those
kisses made her hesitate.

He just watched her, breathing a little harder than he had been before, even after the hot and heavy kiss against the door.

Isabelle chalked that up in the win column. Breaking up wasn’t going to be easy for him either. She knew he cared about her, of course, but the proof was very, very nice.

“How’d you get it back?” she asked, picking her purse up off the floor where she’d dropped it to climb all over him.

“He dropped it,” Shane said. “I found it about a block away.”

“He got away with the pendant?” she asked, knowing the answer. Dammit. Now what? Was she supposed to try to find him and get it back or did Big Time have a contingency plan for if she screwed up?

“I guess. I stopped chasing him once I saw your purse. I rummaged in your bag and didn’t find it, so I assume he took it. But I don’t really care. I’d rather not be mixed up in this anyway.”

Isabelle felt a twist of disappointment at his words. Shane wasn’t having
any
fun?

As they walked back to the car, Isabelle kept replaying all the events as she dug in her purse to be sure nothing had fallen out. Her fingers slipped into the hole in the lining of the purse and she sighed. Dammit, she’d only had this purse for a month.

Her finger connected with something in the bottom of the bag. She frowned. That didn’t feel familiar; it was hard, but covered in cloth. She tried to get her fingers around it, but quickly realized that whatever it was had slipped through that hole. “Shane, hang on a second.”

She stopped and shook the purse, her fingers probing to find the object.

Sure enough, a moment later she withdrew the pendant.

She held it up to him. “I guess he missed it.”

“Dammit,” was Shane’s response.

“Yeah. Hidden compartment I didn’t even know about.”

“Well, I guess we’re making a stop at the police station after all.”

They headed for the car, picking up their pace. Shane pulled his phone out as they jogged, pushing a speed-dial number. A moment later he said, “Michael, it’s me. Need you to run a license plate.” He rattled off a number, then hung up.

“That was the SUV’s plate?” she asked.

“Yeah. Let’s see if we can figure out who these guys are.”

“Michael runs license plates for you too?”

“I have this gut feeling that there’s something going on here. I like to get as much information as I can, however I can.”

Of course he had a gut feeling. He was a fantastic cop. “Michael’s the guy you go to for gut feelings?”

“Something like that.” Shane grinned. “He eats this stuff up. And he’s good.”

Maybe she could call Michael and bribe him with pizza to keep information from Shane. A great cop and a computer genius could surely figure a game like this out without even breaking a sweat. Looked like Shane was going to find out about the whole thing sooner rather than later.

They made it back to Isabelle’s car without incident and found the police station without effort.

They had to park a half block away and they walked hand in hand toward the building. Suddenly, a woman dressed in a business suit and carrying a briefcase, with a cell phone to her ear, came around the corner of the building, running directly into Shane. Running into Shane Kelley affected most people—football players and businesswomen alike—by setting them back a few feet. At least. The woman stumbled on her heels, her cell phone flying. Shane caught her by her elbows, keeping her rump from hitting the sidewalk. Her phone was not as fortunate. The outer case and the battery flew in two different directions.

“Dammit, I’m sorry,” Shane apologized, making sure she was balanced.

“It’s okay, you just startled me,” the woman said, a little breathless, splaying her hand over her generous cleavage. “I should have been paying more attention.”

“Me too,” Shane said, squatting to the ground to gather the phone pieces.

Someone grabbed her arm as Shane was trying to fit the battery back into the phone.

She spun to face Bradley.

“Give me the pendant,” he whispered. “You can’t take it in to the cops. It’s a ton of paperwork to get it back.”

She nodded and handed it over. “Now what?”

“You’ll see.” He winked again and slipped behind a tree and out of sight.

Isabelle turned back to find the woman’s hand on Shane’s arm, standing way too close and smiling up at him like he was Superman rather than the guy who’d about knocked her on her ass.

Seriously?

“Thank you so much,” the woman said. “The phone is working better now than it was before.”

Isabelle rolled her eyes.

“Sure thing. I’m sorry again about plowing into you.”

Isabelle knew that he didn’t mean it sexually, but damned if her brain didn’t go there. She stomped forward and hooked her arm through his—the one the other woman wasn’t draped all over. “Shane, sweetie, don’t we need to be going?”

He looked at her. “Yep, that’s right. We’ve got some business. Nice to have met you.”

“Oh, you too,” the woman purred as she stepped aside so they could pass.

They got a few feet away and Isabelle asked, “What color was her suit?”

“Uh, blue.”

“Red. Bright red. Very hard to miss.”

He chuckled. “Right, red.”

“Uh-huh. Well, while you were being so helpful, I got rid of the pendant.”

Shane stopped. “What?”

“Bradley showed up. Said we couldn’t take it to the cops.”

Shane crossed his arms. “And you just let him take it?”

“He’s the one who gave it to me. As far as I know, it’s his. And you said you didn’t want to be involved anyway.”

Shane sighed. “How did he know we were going to the cops?”

Right. Good question. “Uh, maybe he’s been following us. Making sure we’re following his instructions. Which we weren’t,” she reminded him.

“If he’s going to be following us all the way to the drop site, why not just take it himself?”

Uh, huh. It didn’t make any sense. She got that. But most people playing the game
knew
it was a game and were willing to let a few details slide here and there.

Her mind spun with ideas. “Maybe there are other people following him too. We’re the…mules.” She thought that was the right term.

One corner of Shane’s mouth twitched. Was that an almost-smile?

“What’s so important about this pendant anyway?” he asked.

The twinkle in his eye allowed her to let her imagination run. “Maybe it’s got magical healing powers. Or maybe it’s the key to finding a lost civilization.”

“And a city of gold?” he asked, the frown he’d been wearing since the Corn Palace completely gone. “You’ve watched
National Treasure
too many times.”

She nodded. “Love those movies.” She stepped in closer to him, her hand on his arm. “Or maybe it brings true and lasting love to anyone who owns it.” She paused. “That’s worth fighting for, I think.”

He stared into her eyes. “Yeah, I’d drive across the great state of South Dakota for that.”

Her heart thumped and she knew that the shot of adrenaline coursing through her now had nothing to do with the pendant.

Someone else came around the corner and nearly bumped into them. This time the guy just sidestepped and glared at them. He was clearly not part of the game.

“Bradley’s going to take it from here?” Shane asked, obviously snapped out of the moment they’d had going. “He’ll leave you alone now?”

She doubted it. “He didn’t say.”

Shane glanced toward the front doors of the police station. “We should still report Harris trying to steal your purse.”

“But I have it back,” she said quickly. “Nothing was taken. They have more important things to worry about, don’t they?”

Ten minutes later, they were sitting in the police station across from an officer anyway.

“You’re reporting that your purse was stolen, but you have it back and nothing’s missing?” Officer Timmins asked.

“Right.”

“We’ll keep a look out for him,” the cop said simply. They’d given a description of Harris. Shane had even given them the license plate number on the SUV.

Isabelle assumed that Big Time could easily clear anything up if Harris and his handler were pulled over.

But Shane frowned and leaned in. They’d already established that he was a fellow officer of the law in Omaha, but that didn’t mean that the guys in Mitchell were any more helpful. Or maybe it did. Maybe they would have been less helpful with an average Joe. Though it was hard to believe that was possible. The guy had stopped even taking notes about three minutes into their story.

“Look, Greg,” Shane said, using the man’s first name. “Two strange men have approached Isabelle in this town in the past couple of hours. One gave her a pendant that could be stolen property for all we know. The other stole her purse.”

“And she got it back.”

“You don’t care about these men harassing female tourists?”

“Have they hurt you, ma’am?” the cop asked Isabelle.

“No.”

“Did any of them threaten to hurt you?”

She frowned. “No.”

“And you have all of your belongings?”

“Yes.”

He looked back at Shane. “I’m not sure what else you want me to do here. We’ll keep a look out for this guy and we’ll pick him up if we see him or the SUV.”

“What about this mysterious pendant?” Shane asked. “What if it’s stolen?”

Shane had shared the photo on his phone with the cops when they’d first told them about it.

Greg turned his computer monitor so they could see it. “It hasn’t been stolen.”

The screen showed a photo of a pendant that looked identical to the one Bradley had given her. The owner was a Mr. Henry Licthberg in Philadelphia. Clearly Big Time had made a replica of a real pendant. There was no way she was going to be able to keep Shane believing this was all real.

“If it belongs in Philadelphia, what are all these guys in South Dakota doing with it?” Shane asked.

“Maybe they bought it. Maybe he gave it to them. Maybe the one you saw was a knock-off,” Greg said. “Whatever the case, there’s nothing going on here that I can do much about. No one’s reported the pendant stolen. If the guys bother you again, give me a call.”

As they walked down the hallway of the station to the front doors, Isabelle could feel the frustration coming off of Shane. “I can’t believe Bradley came up to you again and I was
right there.
” Shane said. He ran a hand over the back of his neck, his telltale sign of agitation. “This guy either has a death-wish or the IQ of a rock.”

Isabelle felt a flicker of guilt. He was truly worried—she felt a little bad about deceiving him. But dang, part of her really wanted to bask in his protectiveness. Maybe she could play up the damsel in distress thing even more next time.