Present Danger (5 page)

“Well, well, well. You finally said my name.”

“Ah beg your pardon?”

“You
said James.
You’ve never called me anything but Mistah Rydah before now. … We must be makin’ strides. Why, before you know it, we’ll probably be all the way up to casual acquaintances.”

She gave him a slow once-over. “Well, I don’t know. I do have my standards, you know.” She didn’t mean it to come out quite as snooty-sounding as it did, but she excused herself with the knowledge that she was merely responding to his inexplicable attitude. “Would you mind getting your feet off my coffee table?”

He dropped his feet to the floor and stood up. Jesus, but she could make him feel like a clod. “Show me the lamp that needs fixing.”

“It’s in the bedroom.” He followed her down the hall but stopped dead just inside the doorway.

“Great bed,” he remarked, and this time his tone wasn’t sarcastic. The bed was large and covered by a beautiful burgundy satin-and-ecru lace coverlet, but the head- and footboards were its crowning glory. The headboard was tall, made of solid rattan, and the footboard was only slightly shorter. Both curved gently and had rounded edges of intricate weave and subtle shadings.

“Isn’t it gorgeous?” Aunie ran an affectionate hand over the headboard. “It was my divorce present to myself. This is the problem lamp,” she said, indicating the small Tiffany creation on her nightstand. “It worked fine last night, but this morning it was dead.”

He sat on the side of the bed, picked up the delicately
crafted lamp, and inspected it. “Hit the overhead, will you? I can’t see.” She did as he requested. “Problem continued when you changed the bulb, I take it?”

“What?”

He raised his head and stared at her. “Aunie, you did change the light bulb, didn’t you?”

If the floor could have opened at that moment and swallowed her up, she would have welcomed it. Tears of mortification filled her eyes. Would she never have the brains to do the most basic tasks?

James’s knowing grin disappeared at the sight of the tears swimming in her lower lids, making her brown eyes—large before—appear enormous. Christ, she didn’t know the simplest things, but still … “Don’t cry!” he commanded roughly. “Everyone fu … er, messes up occasionally. We all make mistakes; you’re old enough to know that.” He hotly resented the strange rush of protectiveness he experienced.

“Not brainless ones like this,” she retorted unhappily. “Anybody with the least bit of intelligence would have thought to check the bulb first. But not me, boy; it never even
occurred
to me. I’m totally
useless.”

“Bull. You sand a mean wall, and nobody who can hum while she’s sanding plaster is totally useless.”

Aunie brightened. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. You bet.”

She smiled at him. “I take back every rotten thing I ever thought about you, James Ryder. You’re a nice man.”

“Yeah, I’m a prince. I’m only amazed you could’ve thought anything rotten about me in the first place.” All right, Ryder, his mind whispered, you’ve done your good deed for the day. Time to get the hell out of here. He looked away and for the first time since
entering the room, noticed the photographs on the walls. His jaw dropped. “Holy shit.”

There were eight of them, framed black-and-white photographs of men in various stages of undress. Men with dark hair and men with light hair, two black men and an Oriental, each showcasing a different portion of their anatomy: chests, stomachs, backs, buns, shoulders or legs. James inspected them, then turned to Aunie, raising an eyebrow. “Beefcake?” Somehow, he wouldn’t have pegged her as the type to have all that male pulchritude gracing her bedroom walls.

“My fantasy boys.” She laughed at the expression on his face. “Okay, I admit it: I’m going through a delayed adolescence. Mama raised me to be a perfect little lady, and posters of movie or rock stars on my bedroom walls were
not
quite the thing. I went from high school to a year of finishing school to marriage to an older man to divorce. Now I’m catchin’ up on all the stuff I never got to do as a teenager. I’m wearin’ jeans instead of designer dresses, runnin’ shoes instead of heels, going to college instead of A-list functions, and collecting pictures of pretty, almost-naked men. When I work up the nerve, I’m even gonna have a red-hot affair … providin’ I can find someone promisin’ to have it with.” She bit her lip in sudden self-consciousness, hardly believing she was telling him this stuff. This was the man who didn’t even want her living here.

Mentally, she shrugged. Well, if he didn’t like what he was hearing he knew where the door was. She had made a vow to herself that she would never again arrange her life to suit someone else’s idea of propriety. She glanced at him speculatively from beneath her lashes and decided that with his street-wise looks
and given those eyes of his and the way he’d opened the door to her only half-dressed, he probably wasn’t the type to be shocked by anything she had to say anyway. “I bet you’ve had some red-hot affairs, huh?”

Christ. He looked at her standing there looking too fragile to handle a really hot kiss, let alone a session of down and dirty rough sex. She was the type you’d have to be real slow and careful with … the type he had always assiduously avoided. “No,” James said shortly. “No affairs. I’m not big on commitment.” He stressed that, just in case she had any thoughts of practicing on him. To his irritation, he could feel himself growing half hard at the thought. Knee-jerk reaction, he decided and said bluntly, “I’ve had some great sex in the one-night-stand department, though.” There. That oughta turn her off.

She merely raised one dark eyebrow and gave him half a smile. “Lucky you,” she said with total sincerity. “I haven’t had great sex, period. I’ve never advanced beyond mediocre.” Her eyes closed and she smiled dreamily. “I want
passion.”
Her eyes shot open and met his as her face suffused with a sudden influx of blood. “I can’t believe I’m telling you this.”

“That makes two of us,” James muttered.

“It’s just that … well, you look like you’d know about these sorta things.”

“Listen, don’t go getting any…” James hesitated, not quite sure how to put this without sounding overbearingly conceited. Then he plunged ahead. Better to sound vain than have a future misunderstanding. The fact was they
did
have to live in the same building and the less friction between them the better. “Don’t go getting any ideas about including me in your plans, okay? You’re not my type, and I don’t mess with novices.”

“Who asked you to?” Aunie asked with an affronted
dignity that made James feel about two feet tall. So what if she’d thought for maybe three seconds that he’d make a splendid teacher? She knew he was out of her league.

“Perhaps I shouldn’t have said what I said,” she told him in a stiff little voice, “but I wasn’t fishing for an offer to be sexually coached, so you can relax. Nor am I harboring any secret designs on your body, and believe me, I’m not looking to trap any man. In fact, the only thing you and I most likely have in common, Mister Ryder, is a deep-seated desire to avoid commitment.”

Something in her expression made James remember the vicious abuse that had been done to her face, and for the first time, he really wondered about it. What kind of a man could apply his fists to that face? But then she gave him a polite, social smile and he let it slip away, sure he didn’t want to know anyway.

“Forget what I said about wanting an affair, okay?” she requested in a cool little voice. “It was a stupid thing to blurt out to a man I barely know.” She laughed suddenly, a deep, rich sound. “Do you have any idea how difficult it is to have a serious conversation with a person who has an ax sticking out of his head?”

He grinned at her cockily and tipped an eyebrow again, making the hatchet move.

Someone pounded on the door and Aunie jumped. “You expecting someone?” James asked.

“No.” Her eyes were huge as she returned his look. “Except for Otis and Lola, I don’t really know anyone in this town; I haven’t lived here long enough to meet very many people.”

James noted her sudden tension. He also noticed when she casually palmed a small, sharp pair of scissors
off the nightstand and slipped them into her back pocket. Frowning, he stuck close to her as he followed her out into the living room.

She opened her front door cautiously. There was a large man standing on her threshold, scratching his head as he looked down at her. He looked vaguely menacing, with his unkempt hair in need of a cut, his huge barrel chest and stomach. He was wearing a pair of threadbare jeans that sagged in the seat, an old, stretched-out, no-color T-shirt with a faded Harley Davidson logo on the chest, and a ratty denim vest. There was a tattoo of a rose-entwined dagger on his forearm. He looked vaguely familiar, but she was certain they’d never met. Perhaps it was only that he reminded her of pictures she had seen of members of the Hell’s Angels motorcycle gang. She looked up at him uncertainly. “May I help you?”

“Jimmy here?” He had a surprisingly melodious voice. “Otis’s old lady said he might be.”

“My brother,” James informed her without enthusiasm when she glanced at him over her shoulder.

Of course, that was where she’d seen the man before—going into James’s apartment. She opened the door fully, smiling up at him. “Come in.”

“Thanks.” He lumbered through the doorway. “I’m Bob. Hey, Jimmy.” He stared at the hatchet in his brother’s forehead. “Gawd Almighty, boy, ain’t you ever gonna grow up?”

“No,” James replied shortly. Hell of a question, he thought sourly, from a guy who—unless he missed his guess—was here either to borrow money or have his younger brother help untangle him from the latest mess he’d gotten himself into. “Aunie, this is my brother Bob. Bobby, Aunie Franklin.”

“How nice to meet a member of James’s family,”
Aunie said with the graciousness that had been instilled in her from birth. “How do you do?” She offered her hand.

It was swallowed up in his large, meaty grasp. “I’ve had better days, little lady. But it’s nice meetin’ a pretty little thing like you.”

“We’ll get out of your hair, Aunie,” James interrupted. “C’mon, Bobby; let’s go down to my apartment.”

“Thanks for the help with my lamp,” Aunie said, and then blushed when she remembered how unnecessary his help would have been if she had used an ounce of common sense and changed the bulb when it burned out.

Bob grinned at the high color in her cheeks, misinterpreting its meaning. Aunie saw him elbow James as they started down the hall. “You stickin’ it to the little girl with the big eyes, Jimmy? Not your usual type, is she? I mean, the face is a genetic masterpiece, no doubt about it; but she’s got no tits.”

“Shut the fu … just shut up, Bob,” James snapped. “Aunie’s an acquaintance … hell, barely even that. I’m
not
sleeping with her.”

Aunie shut the door and gazed down at her breasts with a rueful smile. She had a bosom. It just wasn’t a particularly
memorable
bosom.

James turned to his brother the minute the door closed behind them. “So, what do y’need this time?”

“A beer would be nice.”

James uttered some truly creative obscenities beneath his breath before he remembered he was trying not to do that anymore. He went to the refrigerator and pulled out two bottles of Dos Equis, handing one to his brother.

Bob popped off the cap and took a healthy swig.
He wiped his lips with the back of his hand. His voice grew defensive when he met his brother’s unrelenting stare. “Jeez, kid, can’t a guy come visit his kid brother without being suspected of some ulterior motive?”

James just looked at him and Bob shifted uncomfortably. “Okay, okay. I need a loan—but unlike the others, I think I’ve got a real shot at paying this one back.”

“What is it this time?”

“You should get a real bang outta this. I want to buy a half interest in a couple of limos.”

James dropped onto the nearest available chair and regarded his brother with interest. This was different from most of Bob’s harebrained schemes to get rich quick. At least this one was in Bob’s field of expertise—he was one of the best mechanics in town. “Tell me about it.”

The couch creaked in protest when Bob settled his considerable weight on it. “Y remember T.J. Wexler? He’s got a line on a pretty sweet deal for a couple of used limousines. Only twenty-eight thousand miles on one and thirty-one thou on the other. We figgered if we could scrape up the cash between us, we’d buy ‘em and start a service. Satin Doll Limousines. He’d be the driver and I’d keep the cars running sweet. I can fill in as driver, too, if need be. If it pans out, we’d invest in a third car and another driver and—who knows?—maybe someday we’d have us a fleet.” He peered at his brother. “Limos are a hot commodity right now, Jimmy. Hell, even teenagers are laying down their cash to rent ‘em.”

“How much would you need?”

“I’ve got it all written down here.” Bob rocked up on one hip and pulled a many-times-folded sheet of paper from his back pocket. He unfolded it carefully
and passed it to James. “This would cover my half of the cash outlay for the cars, plus insurance, business license, advertising, a separate phone line at the Wexlers’ to handle the calls and maintenance for six months. This here’s the total.” He pointed to the figure near the bottom of the page.

Bob had had ideas before that had never quite panned out, but James, in spite of himself, was impressed this time. His brother hadn’t merely figured the cost of the cars and let it go at that. He’d obviously put some thought into what was needed both to get the business off the ground and to keep it going. Bobby had a sweet touch with anything mechanical, and this proposition looked almost … viable.

“I’ll sign a loan contract if y’ want me to. I figgered your interest would have to be lower than a shark’s.”

“Stay away from the frigging loan sharks, Bobby. Haven’t you learned that lesson yet?” James scowled at his brother. It was a recurring problem: Bob borrowing from the street hoods who made loans at exorbitant interest rates and then took it out of the borrower’s hide if they couldn’t repay. “I’ll give you the money. Keep your interest.” He got up and hunted through the messy desk drawer for his savings passbook and checkbook. He pulled them out and turned to look at his brother over his shoulder. “This sounds well suited to you, Bobby. I hope you can make it work.”