The MacGregor Brides (3 page)

“Okay.” Royce tried an easy smile. “But you’re going to look pretty stupid, since I’m just doing my job. Cameron Security? You didn’t answer when I knocked. I guess Whitney was singing too loud.” He kept his eyes on hers. “I’m just going to get out my ID.”

“Two fingers,” she ordered. “And move slow.”

That was his intention. Those big, dark eyes of hers held more temper and violence than fear. A woman who could face a strange man down alone, kitchen knife in hand, without trembling wasn’t a woman to challenge. “I had a nine-o’clock to assess the house and discuss systems.”

She flicked her gaze down to the identification he held up. “An appointment with whom?”

“Laura MacGregor.”

She closed her free hand around the phone. “I’m Laura MacGregor, pal, and I didn’t make an appointment with you.”

“Mr. MacGregor arranged the appointment.”

She hesitated. “Which Mr. MacGregor?”

Royce smiled again.
“The
MacGregor. Daniel MacGregor. I was to meet his granddaughter Laura at nine, and design and install the best security system known to man in order to protect his girls.” The smile flashed charmingly. “Your grandmother worries.”

Laura took her hand from the phone, but didn’t put down the knife. It was precisely the kind of thing her grandfather would do, and exactly what he’d say. “When did he hire you?”

“Last week. I had to go up to that fortress of his in Hyannis Port so he could check me out face-to-face. Hell of a place. Hell of a man. We had a Scotch and a cigar after we did the deal.”

“Really?” She arched a brow. “And what did my grandmother have to say about that?”

“About the deal?”

“About the cigars.”

“She wasn’t there when we closed the deal. And since he locked the door of his office before he got the cigars out of a hollowed-out copy of
War and Peace
, I have to conclude she doesn’t approve of cigars.”

Laura let out a long breath, set the knife back in the wooden knife block. “Okay, Mr. Cameron, you
pass.”

“He said you’d be expecting me. I take it you weren’t.”

“No, I wasn’t. He called this morning, said something about a present he was sending. I think.” She shrugged, her hair flowing with the movement, picked up the drumstick she’d dropped and dumped it in the wastecan. “How did you get in?”

“He gave me a key.” Royce dug it out of his pocket, and put it into the hand Laura held out. “I did ring the bell. Several times.”

“Uh-huh.”

Royce glanced down at the soft-drink can. “You’ve got a good arm, Ms. MacGregor.” He shifted his gaze back to her face. Cheekbones that could cut glass, he thought, a mouth fashioned for wild sex, and eyes the color of sinful dark chocolate. “And possibly the most incredible face I’ve ever seen.”

She didn’t like the way he was looking at it, savoring it, she thought, with a stare that was arrogant, rude and unnerving. “You have good reflexes, Mr. Cameron. Or you’d be lying on my kitchen floor with a concussion right now.”

“Might have been worth it,” he said with a grin that tried to be disarming, but was just wicked, and offered her back the soft drink.

“I’ll get dressed, then we can discuss security systems.”

“You don’t have to change on my account.”

She angled her head and gave him a look that encompassed him from his overly appreciative expression to his don’t-mess-with-me stance. “Yes, I do. Because if you keep looking at me that way for another ten seconds, you will have a concussion. I won’t be long.”

She sailed by him. Royce turned as she passed so that he could enjoy watching her walk away on those endless, fascinating legs. And he whistled through his teeth again.

One way or the other, he thought with a long appreciative sigh, Laura MacGregor was a knockout.

In the law offices of MacGregor and MacGregor, Laura sat at a long oak table, surrounded by books. She’d buried herself in the library all morning, determined to find an additional precedent for the brief she was refining on her latest assignment.

When her parents returned the following week, she’d have it perfected. Her mother was trying the case of Massachusetts v. Holloway, and Laura was doing research on it for her, but she’d developed an emotional attachment to this particular case.

If she handled the paperwork, the legwork, the hours of research, she might earn a seat beside her mother in the courtroom. And maybe, just maybe, she’d be allowed to question a witness.

She wanted the intensity of the courtroom, the drama of judge and jury. She understood the value of research, the necessity of planning every move and every eventuality of a trial case. She’d read and study until her eyes crossed, but by God, she was going to earn her stripes. And eventually, her own caseload.

Amanda Holloway had killed her husband. There was no question about the deed. But guilt, by law, was another matter. She’d been battered emotionally and physically for five miserable years. Five years of broken bones and a broken spirit, Laura thought. It was easy to say she should have walked out—she should have run, and never looked back. In fact, Laura sometimes caught herself thinking just that. But Amanda Holloway hadn’t walked and she hadn’t run. In the end, she had snapped.

One night during the heat of high summer, after another beating, another rape, she had taken her husband’s service revolver and emptied the clip into him while he slept.

The pity of it, Laura thought coolly, was that she’d waited more than an hour after the rape. An hour equaled premeditation. The fact that John Holloway had been a cop with a file full of commendations also didn’t help matters.

Some might think that justice had been done that night, but the law trod a colder line. And Laura was determined to use the law to keep Amanda Holloway out of prison.

* * *

Royce really enjoyed watching her. Just now, she didn’t resemble the woman who’d sung in her underwear, or the coolly polite one who’d worn a simple sweater and discussed alarm systems with him. She’d tamed that waterfall of dark hair into a complicated braid that lay down the center of her back. She had simple gold drops at her ears and a slim gold watch on her wrist, along with the wink and flash of a diamond tennis bracelet.

Her white silk blouse was very tailored, and a navy blazer hung over the back of her chair. The
room smelled of leather, polished wood and woman.

Just now, he thought, Laura MacGregor looked classy, expensive and utterly unapproachable. Unapproachable, Royce mused, unless a man had seen her hips wiggling about in a pair of silk boxers.

He leaned on the doorjamb. “You look like a lawyer.”

Her head shot up. He admired the speed with which she recovered. Surprise was no more than a flash in those dark chocolate eyes before they cooled. “I passed the bar last summer. I am a lawyer. Do you need one?”

“Not at the moment, but I’ll keep you in mind.” The fact was, he’d kept her in mind for the better part of a week.

Windswept hair, that intriguing little scar, those damn-the-devil eyes combined to make him a man a woman couldn’t help wondering about. Since she didn’t want to wonder, she wanted him gone. “The offices are basically closed until the end of the month.”

“So the receptionist told me downstairs. But I’m not here to hire you or your parents.” He walked in—his movements making her think of a cat poised to spring—and edged a hip on the table.

“Why are you here?”

“I had a job to look over in the neighborhood. I thought I’d let you know we’ll start installing your system Saturday morning.”

“That’s fine. I’m sure my grandfather will be pleased.”

“He’s got the right idea, protecting what matters to him. He’s proud of you and your cousins. It shines right out of him when he talks about you.”

Laura’s eyes softened, and her body lost its defensively rigid posture. “He’s the most wonderful man in the world. And one of the most exasperating. If he could, he’d tuck all of us into his castle in Hyannis.”

“Boston can be a dangerous city for a pretty young girl,” Royce said, in a deep burr that mimicked Daniel and made Laura’s lips twitch.

“Not bad. A little more volume and you’d have almost nailed him.”

“And he’s right, it can be. You’re three single women living in a big house filled with expensive things, easily fenced merchandise. One of you is the daughter of a former U.S. president, and all of you granddaughters of one of the richest men in the country. And you’re beautiful. All of that makes you potential targets.”

“We’re not fools, Mr. Cameron.”

“Royce.”

“We’re not fools,” she repeated. “We don’t walk into dark alleys, open the door to strangers or pick up men in bars.”

“Well, Slim, that’s commendable.”

Her shoulders were tightening again. “My grandfather is overreacting, but if installing a complicated security system eases his mind, then that’s what we’ll do.”

“But you don’t think you need security.”

“I think my cousins and I are perfectly safe in our own home.”

“Do you consider having a man walk into your kitchen while you’re dancing in your underwear safe?”

“You had a key—and I wasn’t in my underwear.”

“I’d have been inside as easily without the key as with it. And what was it, if it wasn’t your underwear?”

“Pajamas,” she snapped.

“Oh, well, then, that’s different.” Royce grinned down at her, enjoying the sizzle of temper in her dark eyes.

“Look, you install the damn system, we’ll use the damn system. Now I’ve got—” She strained backward when he leaned down. “What are you doing?”

He drew in a slow breath. “Just getting the full impact. I like your perfume.” And his eyes gleamed with amusement. “You’re awfully jumpy all of a sudden.”

“I don’t like being crowded.”

“Okay.” He eased back, just a subtle movement of that compact body that didn’t give her quite the distance she would have liked. “How long are you going to be at this?” he asked, waving a hand at the stack of law books.

“Until it’s finished.”

“Why don’t I come back, around seven? We could get some dinner.”

“No.” She said it firmly, and shifted in her chair to give an open book her attention.

“Are you involved?”

“Obviously.”

“I don’t mean with work, Slim. I mean with a man.”

“That’s none of your business.”

“Could be. I like the way you look, the way you smell. I like the way you talk, the way you move. It would be interesting to find out if I like the way you … think,” he ended, as her narrowed eyes lifted and fixed on him.

“Do you want to know what I’m thinking right now?”

He smiled, then grinned, then roared with laughter. “No. If you change your mind about the meal, you’ve got my number.”

“Oh yeah, I’ve certainly got your number.”

He chuckled, started to rise, then saw the label on the folder nearly buried under a stack of books. “Holloway,” he murmured, then looked back at Laura. “The homicide?”

“Yes.”

“I knew John Holloway.”

“Did you?” She’d liked his laugh, nearly been charmed enough by it to reconsider dinner. Now both her voice and her eyes went frosty. “Do you number many spousal abusers among your friends?”

“I didn’t say we were friends, I said I knew him. He used to be a cop. So did I.”

This time, when he started to straighten, she put a hand over his. Her eyes were focused on his face now, calculating, considering. “Did you work with him?”

“No. We worked out of the same precinct for a few months a while back. I was transferred. He was a good cop.”

“He was …” She shut her eyes. “Oh, that’s typical. He kicked his wife around for years, but he was a good cop. Wear the blue and stick together.”

“I’m not a cop anymore,” Royce noted mildly. “And I didn’t know much about him off the job. He did the work, he made the collars, he closed the cases. I wasn’t interested in his personal life.”

“I’m very interested in his personal life.” She’d watched his face while he spoke. He didn’t give away much, Laura mused, but she’d go with her hunches. “You didn’t like him, did you?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Just personal taste. He made me think of a loaded gun with a broken safety. Sooner or later, it goes off.”

“You’d still have contacts on the force, know people who knew him. Cops hate talking to lawyers, but—”

“Maybe because lawyers put scum back on the street before cops can clean up the stain.”

She took a steadying breath. “Amanda Holloway isn’t scum. She simply had the bad judgment to marry scum.”

“That may be, but I can’t help you.” He rose, stepped back. “I’ll be at the house between eight-thirty and nine on Saturday.” He smiled again, a quick quirk of lips. “As much as I’d like to see them again, I wouldn’t wear the pajamas. You’ll distract my crew.”

* * *

“So, what does he look like?”

In the mirror over the bathroom sink, Laura’s gaze shifted from the already dark lashes she was coating with mascara to her cousin’s face. “Who?”

“This ex-cop security expert that Grandpa hired to keep us safe from Boston’s nefarious criminal element.” Gwen leaned over Laura’s shoulder so that their heads were close.

No one would have taken them for cousins, much less—as they were connected on both the MacGregor and Blade branches of the family tree—cousins twice over. Gwen’s hair was a shiny reddish-gold cap, short as a boy’s, in contrast to Laura’s sweep of raven tresses. Gwen had inherited her mother’s coloring, the creamy skin, the eyes that edged from blue into lavender, the rich blond hair that hinted of red.

She had a small, almost delicate build, as well. A combination that gave the deceptive illusion of fragility. She could, when necessary, put in a double shift at the hospital, work out in the gym for an hour and still have fuel left over.

She was, Laura thought, beautiful, brilliant and bossy.

“Are you going to try to tell me you don’t remember what he looks like?” Gwen prompted.

“Hmm? No, I remember. I was thinking of something else. He’s attractive enough, I suppose.”

“Details, Laura, the truth is in the details.” Gwen arched a brow. “Cameron, right? A good Scottish name.”