A Rare Chance (14 page)

“Having your fiancée followed—if that's what Joshua's doing—is not a sign of love. It's a sign of possessiveness and distrust. It's a power play.” She started back down Commonwealth, past the big Victorian townhouses with their tall windows and grand entrances. “I'd rather believe Pete Darrow's acting on his own.”

Cam shook his head. “Doesn't matter what we'd rather believe. It only matters what the facts are. Right now we have more speculation than facts.”

“Well, Lizzie's scared and upset about something, and I intend to find out what.”

“Why?” Cam asked calmly.

She flew around at him. “What do you mean, ‘why'? Because she's my friend!”

“You can't rescue her from herself, Gabriella, any more than I can Pete Darrow.”

“I'm not trying to rescue anyone. I just—”

Her mouth shut, and she stared up momentarily at the sky. When she again focused on Cam, her eyes had darkened and dulled, the fire gone out of them. It was not something, he realized, that he liked seeing. “Lizzie wants so much to be in love that she sometimes loses sight of what's really happening in a relationship. Her fantasies get in the way of her seeing reality. It's something you might expect in a thirteen-year-old. Once—I think it was the summer after our sophomore year in college—she fell for this Hollywood director summering on Cape Cod. He made promises to her.” Gabriella inhaled sharply, retaining an unsteady control of her emotions. “Guys always make crazy promises to her. Turned out he was married, had three kids, and his promises were meaningless.”

“He lied to her,” Cam said. “That's not her fault.”

Gabriella shook her head. “No, he didn't lie. He told her the truth right from the start. Lizzie just makes it seem as if the truth doesn't matter to her. She wants so desperately to find the perfect love. She doesn't know in her gut that there is no such thing.”

“So speaketh the cynic.”

She waved a hand, impatient. “You know what I mean. A romantic, intimate relationship isn't perfect. It's not
supposed
to be perfect. Perfection—I don't know, it makes love sterile, it kills it.”

Cam raised an eyebrow. “You must be a barrel of laughs on a date.”

She grinned suddenly, teasing, sexy, unself-conscious, her unexpected humor catching him by surprise. Her dark eyes danced. “Maybe that's why I don't date much. I don't trust perfection because it's not real. Anyway, enough of that. Lizzie's a mess, and I intend to find out what's going on. And I don't care if you think I'm trying to rescue her. She's my friend.”

“It's your call, Gabby. You do what you have to do.”

“And I suppose you'll be tucked in some alley should things go wrong.”

But he didn't respond to her light sarcasm. He could feel the seriousness come over him like a dead weight. “I wouldn't count on it if I were you. If you take on Pete Darrow, you'd better be prepared to go it alone. I might not be there.”

She turned cool. “I was referring to your furtive ways, not my need to have you protect me. I'm always,” she said, her eyes meeting his, “prepared to go it alone.”

“Gabriella—”

“I need to get home. Enjoy your afternoon.”

Taking long, purposeful strides, she moved up the wide sidewalk. Cam almost let her go. He had things to do. He didn't need to argue with a woman ever determined to stick her head in the lion's mouth. She hadn't changed her ways. She was just as prone to taking risks as she'd ever been.

She would go up against Joshua Reading and Pete Darrow to protect her friend. No question.

“Gabriella,” Cam said, lurching forward.

She didn't stop. She was going to make him chase her.

The hell with it, he thought. She was on her own. But he found himself trotting after her, grabbing her arm, spinning her around to him, and damned near kissing her. He couldn't remember wanting a woman as much as he did her. He didn't think he ever had.

“I have somewhere I need to be,” he said. “When I'm finished, I'd like to talk to you. Will you be home?”

Her eyes narrowed on him, wary, suspicious. But she nodded.

“I'll see you then,” he said.

“Can you tell me where you're going?”

He noticed it wasn't a demand, and—Gabriella Starr being Gabriella Starr—there wasn't a hint of self-pity attached to it. So he figured what the hell. He might as well tell her. “I'm having lunch with one of the detectives who investigated Joshua's attempted kidnapping.”

“Well,” she said with a small, unsettled smile, “have fun.”

 

Lizzie Fairfax didn't talk the whole way out to Joshua's apartment on the Boston waterfront. She insisted Darrow drop her off at the front door of the modern building, and he acquiesced, not so much to reassure her as because it didn't make any difference. She'd go up to the bastard. Now that she was here, she'd do it. She thought she was in love with him.

Tell her about the illegal guns he's collecting,
Darrow thought.

“Don't worry about your pepperpot friend,” he said instead. “I don't hold a grudge, and she didn't hurt me near as much as she wanted to.”

She leveled her mesmerizing green eyes on him. “If you do anything to Gabriella—
anything
—I'll kill you myself. I swear I will.”

Darrow grinned. “A little extreme, aren't we, Ms. Fairfax? Thought you might threaten to have me fired or maybe slice off my balls, but you're just going straight for the kill. Real nice.”

“I suggest you begin taking me seriously,” she said snottily, and she hurled herself out the car door.

The sunlight caught her honey hair, making him think of Rapunzel trapped in her tower. Oh, he took her seriously. Seriously enough to dream about her. Seriously enough to not want her to get hurt.

“Too late, you dumb fuck,” he muttered to himself, coaxing his battered Toyota back out into the street traffic. “You're way too late.”

Lizzie Fairfax was marrying Joshua Reading, and the only person Darrow was in a position to help was himself.

To that end, he drove over to the flats of Beacon Hill, double-parked in front of Cam's building, and debated kicking in one of his windows just to send a message. Yeager never listened. He was too hardheaded, too goddamned rich. He could do as he damned pleased and still eat the next day.

The front door opened, and Cam walked down the front stoop as if he had all the time in the world and maybe then some. “What's up?” he asked.

Darrow could have hit him. A good pop right between the eyes. What's up. Like he didn't know.

“You've been following me,” Darrow said as Cam joined him on the sidewalk. “I want it to stop. Joshua or Titus finds out, I'm out of a job.”

“Right. I'll bet you're real worried about that.”

“You're really starting to piss me off, Yeager.”

He shrugged, unconcerned, and leaned back on his heels. “So where's ol' Josh keep his gun collection?”

Darrow went very still. “You've been listening to the wrong rumors, Cam. Those're put out by some asshole wants to see Joshua Reading go down. I've been with him a month now and haven't seen jack shit.” It was true, so far as it went. But he knew Joshua Reading was into big guns. All the signs were there. Darrow had only to find them and reap his reward, courtesy of their twisted owner.

Cam remained impassive. “Then you're not bleeding him?”

Darrow breathed in, trying to control the surge of anger and self-hate and fear, all of it twisting around inside him, ugly and menacing. “Go fuck yourself,” he said through clenched teeth.

“Pete,” Cam said with his irritating, icy calm, “if you're in over your head, you can count on me. I'll be there for you.”

Darrow was already climbing back into his car. Forget Yeager. Forget telling him about Lizzie Fairfax and Joshua Reading's sick relationship and asking him to look out for her. Let the smug son of a bitch thrash around out there in the dark, trying to figure out what was going on. He didn't need Yeager's help. He'd show him just who was in over his head.

And he'd take care of Lizzie Fairfax himself.

T
rue to his word, Cam showed up late in the afternoon, when Scag had gone home and Gabriella was scrubbing pots from half a dozen orchids he'd discarded, claiming they were beyond saving. He was by no means hardhearted about such pronouncements, merely firm. She was in her gardening clothes: baggy elastic-waist khaki twills and a huge denim shirt. She'd pulled her hair back with a rolled-up red bandanna. Not very sexy. But she wasn't thinking about such things. Was she?

Cam joined her on the deck and she handed him a wire brush. She'd spread out the clay pots on the round table, with one bucket of soapy water and a touch of bleach and another of clear water. Cam's attire, Red Sox shirt and jeans, was entirely appropriate for cleaning pots, if also surprisingly distracting. It revealed the thick muscles in his arms, chest, legs, made her remember the feel of his mouth on hers.

“Dressed like that,” Cam said, irreverent, “I have no trouble imagining you skulking the subtropics for wild orchids.”

“Is that what you're imagining? Me in my old life?”

She meant to call him on his misguided picture of her, remind him she wasn't another Tony Scagliotti, but right away she could see that wasn't what was going to happen. His gaze fixed on her, his sea-blue eyes serious, sexy. He smiled. “No, actually it's not what I'm imagining at all.”

Heat spread through her, as quickly and surely as if he'd touched her. She could feel it in her cheeks, not the heat of embarrassment or awkwardness but, simply and plainly, of desire. It was inopportune. She wanted information from him right now, nothing more. “How was lunch with the detective?” she asked.

His smile faded slowly, his amusement lingering, as if he knew exactly why she'd changed the subject. “Brief and functional. Do I dip this thing in water first, then scrub? Or scrub first, then add the water?”

“Water first. He have anything interesting to say?”

“Not particularly. There are no new leads on the attack on Joshua.” Cam dabbed his wire brush in the soapy water. He used his brush on the outside of the pot first, working deliberately, half as fast as Gabriella would. “He was probably telling the truth, but with Pete and me both leaving the department, I'm not sure he was telling me everything he knows.”

Gabriella carefully dipped a small pot in the clear water, rinsing off the soap. “But there's no indication either of you has been anything but an exemplary member of the Boston police department.”

His eyes flashed, the amusement back. “Been doing a little research, Gabby?”

“You bet,” she said without embarrassment. “I should have done it the minute I realized Darrow was following me. Then I'd have been prepared for you.”

He grinned. “Honey, I don't think there's anything you could have done to prepare for me.”

She cocked a brow at him. “My, my, don't we have a high opinion of ourselves?”

“If you didn't have a bucket of water at your disposal, I'd prove my point. You know sparks have been flying between us from the second you laid eyes on me at Fanueil Hall, and it's got nothing to do with who my father is or who yours is. But we don't need to discuss that right now, seeing how we both know I'm right.” He seemed to be enjoying himself immensely, but suddenly he turned serious. “I've a reputation for calling things as I see them without fretting a whole hell of a lot about the consequences. Pete knows that. He knows if he steps off the straight and narrow, I'll turn him in.”

“No exceptions.”

Cam rinsed his wire brush and got at the inside of the pot, where bits of soil and mold were virtually embedded in the clay. The sunlight was fading, casting his eyes in shadows. “He's a cop. He's got standards to live up to, and there's no mystery about what they are. I'm not talking about thinking about doing wrong. I'm not talking about being tempted. I'm talking about doing it. Pete's work has always been sacred ground to him. He never let the frustrations of the job or his desire for money—the perceived good life—get in the way of the work.”

Gabriella listened without interruption. Her heartbeat quickened, her hands turning cold as she pulled another pot from the tepid water. Cam finished his and handed it to her, their fingertips brushing. She realized she was shaking. Nerves. Pure nerves.

“Until now,” she said.

“That's right.”

“Are you saying he'd do something to Joshua? To Titus? Does he know something about the kidnap attempt that he's holding back, trying to use to his own advantage?”

“I don't know what he knows.”

“But you suspect something. You wouldn't stay on him this way if you didn't. Cam, what are you afraid he's going to do?”

He shook the loose soil from another pot, a good-sized one whose weight he didn't even seem to notice. “Compromise everything he values: his work, his friends, his principles.”

“Why? For what?”

“For a quick buck.”

Gabriella inhaled, trying to calm her pulse and not get ahead of herself.
What's he saying?
She licked her lips, dry with tension. “Cam. Talk to me. Tell me.”

“I think he's setting up a scheme to blackmail Joshua Reading.”

Gabriella flung down a rinsed pot so hard she nearly broke it. Water dripped off her hands. Her bandanna had come loose. “That's ridiculous! Joshua has nothing to hide. Do you have any evidence whatsoever that Pete Darrow has anything—
anything
—on him?”

Cam shook his head, eerily calm. “No.”

Gabriella turned away from him and began pacing across her small rooftop deck. She'd planted nasturtiums in the stone pots that afternoon and planned to buy potted birches for more shade and privacy. She wanted a quiet summer, a pleasant, easy summer. But she had her father and his future to consider, and her job, and now this. The man Joshua Reading had hired to ensure his and his brother's personal security could be blackmailing him. Or planning to blackmail him.

Without looking back at Cam but feeling his presence, his steadiness, she said, “You think Darrow found something during the investigation into the kidnap attempt on Joshua? Some skeleton in the closet he believes Joshua would want to keep there?”

“It's a possibility, yes.”

“Well, it's silly. If Joshua had something to hide, Titus would know it and not stand for it. And the idea that
Titus
—that Darrow unearthed something on him…” She shook her head, thinking out loud more than arguing with Cam. “That's even more preposterous. Titus Reading is one of the most honorable men I know.”

“What if it's something Titus
didn't
know about his brother? Wouldn't Joshua be willing him to pay to keep it that way?”

She sighed. “I just can't see it.”

“Gabriella,” he said softly, “just because you can't see it doesn't mean it's not there.”

“Maybe there
is
nothing there. Maybe Darrow is trying to frame Joshua, make it look as if he did something when really he didn't and then forcing him to pay.” She swung around at Cam, discovering he was closer than she'd anticipated. She had to catch herself to keep from plunging into him. “That's a possibility too, isn't it?”

His gaze was intense, serious, professional. There was no irreverence now. “Yes, it's a possibility. It's also possible Pete's work for the Reading brothers is on the up and up and I'm fishing in sterile water.”

She gave him a long look, pushing back her attraction to him and studying him as clinically as she could. Besides not fitting her stereotype of a governor's son, he didn't strike her as someone who'd indulge his paranoia and meddle in his ex-partner's life without good reason.

Which meant only one thing.

“You're still not telling me everything,” she said.

“Gabriella—”

“Admit it, Cam. You're not.”

He bit off a sigh of pure irritation. “Since when do I have to admit anything to you?”

“Cops,” she said, sounding exactly like Scag. “You like to ask all the questions and make all the assumptions. And prosecutors—hell, they're even worse.”

“What about tight-assed MBAs?” he muttered, not one to back off. “What do they like to do?”

“Don't—”

“Uh-uh. I'm not going to wither, Gabriella. Be as demanding and superior as you want. It's not going to get you anywhere with me.”

She gave him a cool look. “I wouldn't dream of trying to intimidate you.”

He grinned. “Good.”

“But I'm not going to plead, either. I don't do the weak-kneed bit very well. So if it takes begging and doe-eyes to get you to tell me whatever it is you're not telling me, then forget it.”

“Maybe I've given you all I've got.”

She folded her arms over her breasts, giving him raised eyebrows and a very dubious look. “To quote a cop turned prosecutor I'm getting to know, bullshit. I have pretty good instincts, Cam. Hold back what you feel you need to hold back, but don't pretend you're not doing it.”

“Is that an order?”

“A request.”

“Sounds more like the pot calling the kettle black to me.”

“Out,” she said automatically, his sarcasm—his irreverence—finally getting to her. She marched to the stairs, thrust one arm in their direction, and pointed. “Leave now before I pitch you off the roof.”

He rocked back on his heels, not moving. “Gabby, you have no sense of humor.”

“I do when someone's being funny. You weren't being funny. You were just trying to provoke me—or maybe just trying to change the subject.” She squared her shoulders, not backing down despite the sinking sense she might be overreacting. “I mean it, Cam. Out.”

“Or off the roof I go?”

“Don't tempt me.”

“Oh, Gabby,” he said, walking—sauntering—toward her, “I'd never tempt you. Would I?”

She knew she was lost. Even before he got to her, she knew. She couldn't deny what she was feeling anymore. The flood of sensations kept washing over her, like a strong, high tide that wouldn't be kept back. Desire mixed with uncertainty, worry with need, irritation with an urge to laugh. She no longer wanted to resist what would be.

“I suppose you don't think I can throw you off the roof,” she said.

Up close, his eyes sparkled. “I don't know, there's all that weightlifting you do.”

“Don't patronize me, Yeager.”

“Who's patronizing? Weightlifting and crocodile-wrestling. That's a hell of a combo.”

“I didn't wrestle that crocodile, I merely shot him with a tranquilizer gun.”

Cam smiled, catching her hand up in his. “Wasn't there a split second before you shot him that you thought about wrestling him?”

She smiled back at him. She couldn't help herself. “Is that what you think? That in my heart of hearts I'd have taken on that crocodile?”

He drew one finger down the middle of her palm, deliberately, sexily. “Absolutely.”

“Well, I suppose visions of Tarzan did flash before me, but in reality…”

“Ah, reality. Facts, truth, eyewitness accounts. Sometimes they're no more reliable than rumor. Other times not. If I'd heard you'd wrestled a crocodile to the ground, would I be right to tell everyone about it? Or ought I first to verify what I'd heard?”

She frowned. “You're saying you've heard rumors about Joshua or Titus Reading and you don't want to tell me until you've had a chance to check them out.”

He sighed, sticking his fingers between hers, twisting their hands together. He seemed half amused, half frustrated with her. His eyes gleamed, even as his touch sent sparks of awareness all through her. “You've the mind of a technocrat, Gabriella Starr.”

“I'm just—”

“And the heart,” he went on, cutting her off, “of an adventurer who'd stand down a crocodile. You had your trusty tranquilizer gun, and it was your father in danger. So you acted.”

“I had no choice. Scag was being his usual reckless self.”

“You had choices. You could have run or you could have left your father to his own devices. Or you could have done what you did, which was act in spite of the consequences. Sometimes you have to ignore the odds and do what you have to do.”

“You, Cameron Yeager,” she said, mimicking him, “have the mind of a detective and the heart of a prosecutor. You'll go for the jugular every time.”

He laughed. “Remember it,” he said, his free arm going around her. He pulled her to him. She felt the thick muscles of his chest and abdomen, felt her own heartbeat quicken. He tightened his hold on her hand. “I won't lie to you, Gabriella.”

“But you might not tell me everything.”