By Hook or By Crook (18 page)

I could never afford to bring her to a place like this.

Whoa. Where had that come from? Since when did he want anything more from Ivy? He’d been scolding her just hours ago for taking things too seriously, acting as if a lifetime commitment was on the table. This kind of thing was
exactly
why he avoided serious relationships in the first place—they messed with his mind and led women to expect what he couldn’t deliver.

Ivy was something else, though. She could make him want things he couldn’t have or didn’t need with a simple kiss, or a long look from those blue eyes of hers.

“Is everything okay?”

He turned to see her standing at the open door.

“Yeah. Just checking out the surroundings. When I’m on a job, I like to know where the weaknesses are.”

Ivy moved to stand behind him. “Weaknesses? You mean you think those two could find us here?”

“Maybe. We probably don’t have only one guy to worry about. Fight fixers don’t work alone. Ramirez and Cantor have connections to some kind of Vegas crime organization, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they had ties to Tahoe.”

The fear on Ivy’s face made him soften. “I’m probably being paranoid, but that’s my job.”

“Maybe we should have told Dad,” she said.

At Daisy’s insistence, they hadn’t told Richard Smithson about the danger they faced. Against all logic, Daisy still hoped to win her father’s approval for the marriage. The already slim odds of that happening would be non-existent if Smithson knew they were on the run from an enraged Vegas gangster whom Pock had double-crossed.

Ivy still hoped to talk her sister out of the marriage altogether, if it hadn’t happened already. If it had happened, perhaps this time together would give Ivy time to convince her sister to rethink the whole thing. Neither of them were eager to face their father. Ivy hadn’t been pleased about withholding the truth from him, but Joe didn’t mind. Her tendency to run to Daddy with every problem annoyed him.

“Nothing he could do about it, except put us up in a safe place, which he did anyway,” Joe pointed out. “I’ll call the Tahoe police and file a report. They might be able to get something off the 4X4 we ditched. It’s unlikely they were stupid enough to use a vehicle that could be traced back to them, but the cops could get prints. If these guys are in organized crime in Vegas, they may well have criminal records.”

“You can’t do that!” Ivy protested, eyes wide.

“Why the hell not?”

“My father would hate the publicity!”

“Are you serious? You’re going to let a serious crime go unreported because your dad wouldn’t want publicity?” How typical of how the Smithsons operated, always thinking they could play by their own rules. “Your problem is that it’s always about what Dad thinks.”

“He
is
your client,” Ivy reminded him. “You have to care about what he thinks. Besides, we’re not in real danger anymore, are we? This place is like a fortress, we lost those men, and we’ll probably go back to Chicago in a few days.”

“Even if the cops don’t find these two, I still think we should get this on the record.”

“No. You’re working for my father, and you have to protect his interests. I know what he would want, and so do you.”

Joe couldn’t argue with her on that score. Richard Smithson abhorred publicity of any kind. Joe dropped the subject, although it went against his grain to do so. He was a consultant, and Smithson paid his salary. What the client wanted, the client got.

“So what do we do now?”

“What we came here to do. You try to talk your sister out of marrying Pock, or into divorcing him, and I make sure we all stay safe while you’re doing it.”

“What if I can’t talk her out of it?”

The question surprised him. “I thought you were pretty confident you could.”

“I was. I mean, I still am. I’m more convinced than ever that he’s wrong for her, now that I know he’s mixed up with gangsters.”

Joe couldn’t disagree with her. No doubt Pock had made a stupid move by getting involved with fight-fixers, and balking at the last minute made everything worse. “Still, at least he had the decency to be bothered about fixing a fight. A lot of guys would have gone ahead and taken the money,” he pointed out.

“I can’t give him a whole lot of credit for belatedly realizing that fixing fights and hanging out with gangsters is a bad idea. He should have realized that
before
he did it.”

“He’s probably figured that out by now.”

Ivy looked away. “Maybe.”

A strange note in Ivy’s voice drew his attention, and he followed her gaze through the sliding door to where Pock and Daisy lay intertwined on the sofa. Pock leaned back on the couch, muscular legs spread, with Daisy draped atop him, kissing him passionately. He couldn’t tell exactly where Pock’s hands were because of the loose flowing fabric of Daisy’s outfit, but he had a pretty good idea.

“Yeah. Well. Good luck. I think you’ve got your work cut out for you.”

Ivy shook her head, as if to clear it, and stepped away from the patio door, clearly not wanting to intrude on their privacy. Joe had to give her credit. At least she didn’t barge in on them and drag them apart. Her father would have.

“Yes, your opinion on the matter is well known,” she said steadily. “You think I’m doing the wrong thing.”

“I do, but I also think you’re doing it for the right reason, because you care about your sister. That’s got to count for something, right?”

He glanced inside again and saw that the couch was now empty. No doubt Daisy and Pock had taken their PDA to one of the bedrooms. Thank God for that, at least.

“I guess so.” She sighed as if she didn’t believe it though. “I ought to make a grocery list. We’ll need enough food for at least a few days.”

“I’ll take you into town later so we can pick up supplies.”

Ivy nodded. On the threshold, she stopped and turned to Joe. “I want to say thank you. For what you did for me out there. You saved my life.”

“Don’t mention it,” he said, impassive. “It’s my job.”

Something flickered in her eyes. “Of course. You always do your job.” She went inside without another word, closing the door carefully and quietly behind her.

Now what the hell had she meant by that? Was she mad that he viewed taking care of her as a professional responsibility? He’d been hired to find her sister and make sure she stayed safe in the process. What was he supposed to do, throw himself at her feet and declare his undying love after a couple of admittedly scorching kisses?

Noticing the direction of his thoughts, he cursed under his breath. The sooner he could get back to Chicago and extricate himself from the web of the Smithsons, Ivy most of all, the faster his sanity would be restored.

Chapter 11

“Son of a bitch,” Phil Cantor rasped as the doctor shone a penlight in his eyes. Blinking back the agony in his head, he twisted, trying to avoid the beam of light that seemed to penetrate his skull.

“I think you’ve got a concussion, Mr. Cantor. Probably a touch of hypothermia, as well.” The young doctor, professional and efficient in his scrubs, clicked off the penlight and typed a few notes on his laptop.

“No shit,” Cantor mumbled, earning a censorious glance from the doctor. Vertigo claimed him, and he gripped the sides of the table hard, straightening his arms to keep from pitching forward.

“I’ll order an MRI to make sure you don’t have any more serious brain damage. We can’t do that here, so you’ll have to go to Carson Valley.”

“To hell with that.”

“What?” The doctor just looked at him.

“You heard. I don’t have time for that crap. Just give me some pills or something. I gotta get going.”

His fury at Pock’s betrayal had taken a backseat to anger at the detective and his girlfriend who’d done this to him. Rage rose in him, accompanied by a blinding wave of nausea. He grabbed a plastic tray from a nearby stand and emptied his stomach.

“Here, I think you’d better lie down.” The doctor stopped tapping on his laptop long enough to assist Cantor into a prone position. Battling agony and nausea, he didn’t resist.

On the other side of a divider, one gurney over in the emergency department, Ramirez groaned. Knowing that his supposedly psychic buddy had been taken in as badly as he had was Cantor’s only bright spot in this whole scenario.

“You don’t understand, Mr. Cantor. You have a head injury, combined with hypothermia. You need rest, liquids, and time to recover.” The doctor frowned. “I still don’t understand how you got hypothermia from a car accident. It’s not
that
cold out. Inside the vehicle, you should have been protected for a certain amount of time.”

“It was a remote road. We were out there for a long time.” Cantor closed his eyes to block out the ceiling and its glaring lights, which were spinning and whirling in sickening circles.

“I’m surprised your injuries were so localized in a car accident,” the doctor said with a frown. “Usually, you can expect to see bruising from the seat belt, leg injuries if the cab of the vehicle is compromised, or traumatic facial and chest injuries if you weren’t wearing a seat belt. Yet you appear to have suffered just one blow, high on the forehead, and your friend has an injury to the side of the head.”

Cantor opened one eye to glare at the doctor. “You got a point to make, asshole?”

The doctor drew back, eyes wide. “There’s no need to be abusive, sir,” he said.

Cantor opened both eyes to roll them. Forget this. He had to get out of here. Over the doctor’s protests, he levered himself off the table and yanked back the curtain.

“Ramirez, come on.” Ramirez didn’t argue but slid off the table immediately, wincing as he did so. Over the protests of a bevy of nurses and staffers, they paid the bill and left.

“You shouldn’t be driving a car, sir,” a nurse warned as they exited the sliding doors, but Cantor ignored her.

In the parking lot, he made a couple of calls, leaning against a kiosk for support. Damn, but he could hardly stand for the dizziness and nausea. Another thing he could thank that detective and his girl for. They’d better get used to a life on the run. He wouldn’t stop until he had them under his hand.

****

“Hon, you’ve dodged me long enough. What is up with that hot detective?”

Ivy looked up from the potatoes she was scrubbing to see Daisy hovering over her with an expectant expression.

“Nothing,” she replied, attacking the potato with renewed vigor, ignoring her sister’s question. When she saw the potato’s skin disappearing under her overly aggressive attentions, she dropped it into the sink full of cold water and picked up another.

“Does Pock like steak?” Ivy worried. “I bought New York strips at the supermarket, but I didn’t know for sure what he liked.”

Daisy snorted. “Have you looked at the guy? Of course he likes steak. Now, if you made him seitan burgers, you’d have a problem.”

Ivy smiled. “Not much chance of that. The vegan lifestyle is your thing, not mine.”

“
Used
to be my thing, but whatever. Quit trying to dodge. What is up with Joe?”

Ivy sighed. Obviously, Daisy wasn’t going to give up easily. She peered over the bar into the living room area to make sure Joe wasn’t within earshot.

“They’re in the basement playing darts,” Daisy assured her. “Your secret is safe with me, so spill.” Her eyes bored into Ivy like a mother staring down a misbehaving preschooler.

“I don’t have a secret. There’s nothing between us,” Ivy insisted.

“Uh-huh. Don’t BS me. I saw you guys in the car, don’t forget. Honestly, Ivy, I didn’t know you had it in you.”

Her sister’s jab bothered her. Why should Daisy be
that
surprised when Ivy did something a little crazy, a little unexpected?

“So, have you guys done it yet?”

“Daisy!” Ivy dropped the potato in surprise. Fumbling in the chilly water to retrieve it, she felt her face heat. Apparently Joe didn’t even have to be in the room to make her blush now. “Of course not! That would be totally stupid.”

“Why?”

“Because it would. Because it’s obvious why, that’s why!”

Daisy’s unwavering gaze on her made her blush deepen. Flustered, she drained the water out of the sink even though she wasn’t finished washing the potatoes yet. Dammit.

“Methinks you doth protest too much,” Daisy said with a knowing nod.

“Since when do you quote Shakespeare?”

“Hey, I went to college,” Daisy responded. “Even if I did major in fashion merchandising, it still counts.”

Letting that remark pass, Ivy washed the last of the potatoes under running water. After a much-needed nap in the afternoon, she had accompanied Joe into town and picked up enough groceries for a few days. Last night they’d been too tired to do anything but wolf down sandwiches and collapse into bed. Now, after a long day spent napping and unwinding, Ivy had decided to make something a little more elaborate for dinner.

On the granite counter next to her, four fat New York strips sat on a plate, covered in coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper. She had arrayed asparagus brushed with olive oil and sprinkled with fresh herbs on a broiler pan, ready to roast later. A loaf of store-bought pound cake sat in the fridge. She would top it with the mixed-berry compote she’d made.