Once Upon a Marriage (3 page)

Dale's grin made her day. Her week. “That she would,” he said, smiling at her. “You have theater tickets to sell me?”

She'd been planning to give them to him. But one look at his face and she changed her mind.

“What do I owe you?” he asked, pulling a roll of bills out of his pocket. Mostly ones.

“Twenty dollars,” Marie said, trying to remember if the seventy-five-dollar ticket price was on the actual tickets.

“Twenty dollars.” He began counting bills, handed them to her and pulled the chair out to sit down. “I'll hire a car,” he said. “She can wear that pretty rose-colored dress and her sparkly earrings and I'll even get a shave and a haircut...”

He bent to his writing.

The door rattled again. Eva returning, Marie hoped.

She looked up, a smile on her face. And blinked.

It wasn't Eva.

It was
him.

 

CHAPTER THREE

E
LLIOTT
 
HADN
'
T
 
PLANNED
 
to see Marie on Sunday. Or anytime he could avoid seeing her in the near future. After a long night watching Sailor and Terrence Metcalf, the yacht designer, seemingly fall in love at first sight, finding himself relating, he'd been forced to admit to himself that the things he was feeling for Marie Bustamante weren't just passing infatuation.

He'd found it so easy to identify with the poor guy, who'd looked at Ms. Harcourt as though she was the sun, moon and stars all rolled into one.

And so, with a few hours' sleep in his own one-bedroom apartment after seeing Miss Harcourt to the airport that morning for her flight back to New York, he'd called Barbara Bustamante. His plan was twofold. To fire himself. And to acquire her permission to tell her daughter who he was.

Asking Marie out, which was his ultimate goal, would follow the meeting of those goals.

He'd failed on both counts. Mrs. Bustamante categorically refused to allow him to tell Marie—ever—that she'd hired him to watch her. Her paranoia had already rubbed off far too much on her daughter. She didn't want Marie to know that her own mother didn't trust her to make wise decisions where men were concerned. Specifically where her new business partner, but longtime friend, Liam Connelly, was concerned.

And second, she warned him not to quit. Not while things were still so raw with Connelly Investments. Not while he was still watching Liam. He had the perfect in. She'd financed the plan he'd put in place. It would be highly unprofessional for him to just walk out. She could file a complaint against him.

He'd been tempted to tell her that it would be highly unprofessional for him to have a thing for his client's daughter, but refrained.

Because she was right. He'd signed on to do a job that was not yet complete. No one else was going to be able to step into his shoes and have Liam believe that his father's bodyguard had sent him. Elliott's ability to do that had been a fluke of timing. A godsend. And had worked so well in part because Liam hadn't been speaking with his father at the time. And also because everyone had assumed he'd been hired in secret and hadn't asked too many questions.

Later, when Walter Connelly had denied having any part in Elliott's presence in their lives, Liam had taken the words with a grain of salt. His father might not be an embezzler, but he'd been found out to be an inveterate liar.

If not for the plea agreement he'd been offered in exchange for full cooperation in the ongoing investigation of the Ponzi scheme being run through his company, Walter would be facing his own trial on lesser charges. And Liam was now in position to know everything that went on in his father's company, and in much of his personal business, as well.

If anyone else stepped in to watch over the Arapahoe and her owners and occupants now, a big question would be raised as to why. As to who'd sent the new bodyguard. Liam would ask questions Elliott couldn't afford to have him ask. Barbara's role in all of this could very well end up being exposed.

The Professional Private Investigators Association of Colorado would have cause to take action against him for a code of ethics violation. He could lose everything.

Falling for Marie could be a code of ethics violation, too. If he acted on his feelings. So the only solution here was to stay away from her.

Or come clean with Barbara and risk Marie's safety.

He'd decided to give things another month. If no other threats had come forth, if Liam Connelly's life had no longer appeared to be in danger, he'd pull the plug. Get the heck out of their lives.

Barbara wasn't ever going to let him tell Marie the truth about their association and he couldn't enter into a relationship with Marie without doing so.

Not that he was even certain she'd have had him. All of which was a moot now.

“I just spoke with Liam,” he said as Marie joined him at the door of her shop. With a quick look around, he knew they couldn't talk out there. “He and Gabi are on their way down. I need to speak with the three of you in private. Can we go back to your office?”

He didn't see anyone behind the counter. Marie wasn't supposed to work alone. Not since Liam's father's company had been under investigation right after the three of them went into business together and Liam moved in.

Coincidence?

Probably.

But he'd agreed with Barbara on her initial assessment of the situation three months before. The coincidence was too suspicious.

He just no longer suspected Liam Connelly of any subterfuge or wrongdoing. The man had been framed.

“Eva's...” The front door of the shop opened behind him and he swung to see Marie's newest employee, a somewhat ditzy college sophomore, come in.

“Back,” Marie finished. “You go ahead to the office,” she said to Elliott. “I've got something to finish up here and then I'll join you.”

Elliott thought the better idea was to wait for her out front. So he stood as inconspicuously as a six-foot-seven-inch, broad-shouldered man could stand, and waited while she helped an old man put some things in an envelope, watched Eva put candles on one of Marie's amazing double-fudge cakes and then watched the front while the two women escorted the man down the back hall and to the elevator.

Liam and Gabi got off the old car as Dale, Marie called him, got on. Trading places with Eva, Elliott made his way back to Marie's office.

“What's up?” Liam, who was standing behind his wife's chair, arms crossed, faced Elliott as he shut the door. The Connellys, in dark dress pants and shirts, looked as though they'd just stepped out of a boardroom—on a Sunday evening. Marie, in the armed office chair behind her desk, on the other hand, was far too attractive in her stained blue-and-yellow Arapahoe Coffee Shop apron with tendrils of long blond hair falling out of the pony tail she always wore.

“I'm upping your security alert level.” He got right to the point. This was business. And he had no business finding any pleasure while he was there. “It's just a precaution,” he added, raising a hand when all three mouths facing him opened at once. “But to be on the safe side, we're back to no one in the coffee shop alone, even during the day, and you call me every time you have to go out.” The latter was directed at Liam.

“I'm available to see Gabrielle to work every morning and home again in the evening if you so desire.” The protocol Liam had insisted upon when he first took Elliott on.

Gabrielle looked at Marie. “Did you get another letter? We should have been here. I'm so sorry...”

Marie shook her head. “No,” she said, glancing toward Elliott with concern written all over her face. And then, with her expression softening, turned back to Gabrielle. “And you have no reason to be sorry. It isn't every day that Liam's father invites you two to accompany him, and brunch at the governor's mansion is an honor. A sign of his growing acceptance and respect.”

Elliott had known Walter was in town for the weekend to take care of some business. He hadn't been told exactly what the business was.

“I'm assuming your father's on his way back to Florida?” he asked Liam, just to make certain that there hadn't been a change of plans.

“Yes. Tamara's got a softball game tomorrow night. They're in the play-offs.”

Tamara Bolin, the fourteen-year-old half sister Liam had just found out about during the initial investigation of his father's company. She lived with her mother, Missy, in a beach cottage Walter Connelly had purchased for them years before. Walter and Missy were married now and Walter, having given Liam a lot more control in the business he'd almost lost, was spending a good bit of his time in Florida. Working from his home office. With trips up to Denver to meet face-to-face with the powerful and moneyed clientele he'd taken on over the years.

Most of whom were still with them.

“So what's going on?” Gabrielle sat forward, her expression stoic but focused. She reminded Elliott most of himself.

A woman who kept her heart under lock and key.

Except when it came to Marie and Liam.

He envied her them. Or would, if he allowed himself foolish luxuries.

“I've noticed a car parked down the street on several occasions lately. The driver is always inside, slumped down wearing a baseball cap. Today, when I approached, he—or she—pretended not to see me motion him to roll down the window and drove off. I ran the plate on the car. It was stolen.”

Marie sat up straight on the edge of her seat. “Someone in a stolen car's been watching us?”

“I'm not saying that.” He enunciated this carefully. “And no, I'm not saying the car is stolen. The plate was stolen. It came back as belonging to an '82 Ford Granada belonging to a woman who died six months ago. The Granada has been parked in an alley behind a garage at her grandson's house while they waited for the estate to settle. No one noticed the plate missing.”

“You're sure they were watching this place?” Liam asked. Elliott had labeled him the Pollyanna of the group.

“No, I'm not.” He had to be honest. “But with everything else that's gone on, we'd be remiss not to treat it like it was.”

Marie looked at Gabrielle and the two women exchanged glances with Liam, who slid his hands into his pockets.

“Fine,” Gabrielle said. Marie nodded.

“I'd appreciate it if you'd see my wife to work every morning,” Liam said. “I can have the company car pick me up.”

“Not a good idea,” Elliott said. “A stretch limo parked out back would be salt in a wound around here.”

“I agree with him, Liam,” Gabrielle said. “I can get myself to work. You're the target. Elliott should go with you.”

Pulling his hands out of his pockets, Liam faced Elliott. “You go with her.” He nodded toward his wife. “I'll work from home for the next couple of days. Let's reassess later in the week.”

One by one, Elliott looked at his three charges. One by one they nodded.

And he turned, wanting only to get out of there.

* * *

M
ARIE
 
SAW
E
LLIOTT
 
ready to leave, and her heart dropped.

What was the matter with her? It had no business dropping because the giant her friend had hired was going home.

Without giving her a chance to set things straight between them.

No wonder he was so eager to leave. He probably thought she'd been hitting him up for information on his client. Trying to coax him into breaking his code of ethics, or client/investigator privilege or something.

The elevator door opened before Elliott made it out to the hallway.

“Oh! Good! You're all here!” Eighty-one-year-old that day Susan Gruber, slender and statuesque in a flowered housedress and black shoes with inch-thick soles, blocked Elliott's departure. Dale, right behind her, stood there grinning.

“I just had to thank you,” she said. “Dale told me you all helped him plan my little party and gift, and I just don't know when he's made me so happy.” She told them, in second-to-second detail, how he came in the door with the cake and presented her with the envelope. She talked about the last time she went to the theater—thirty years before—and remembered exactly what she saw.

Marie, who ordinarily would have wanted to take the couple out to the coffee shop and sit with them through every detail, watched Elliott. Afraid he was going to slip out.

Instead, it was Liam and Gabi who did so. They had another couple upstairs in their huge, luxuriously remodeled apartment, someone Gabi had met at the governor's mansion that day who could help her get more funding for indigent legal services, and the four of them had just been sitting down to a glass of wine when Elliott contacted them.

And by the time Susan and Dale left, she could see from the hallway that the coffee shop had closed and Eva was gone, too. Expecting Elliott to head straight out, she stopped just as they reached the shop.

“Can I make you a cup of coffee? Dark roast with a shot of espresso, black?” She knew what he liked. Just as she knew a good many of her clients' preferences.

Expecting him to refuse, she was ready to talk him into at least taking it to go—which would give her time to apologize for her behavior the day before. She was shocked when he said instead, “Have you got a piece of that double-fudge cake to go with it?”

Which reminded her she had to bake another cake for the next day. Grace baked cakes twice a week. Tuesdays and Saturdays. She'd used up Monday's double-fudge allotment with Dale.

“One piece,” she said, hoping that Eva hadn't sold Sunday's last piece of cake during the time she was in the back office.

Her chances of getting him to stay while another cake baked were pretty slim.

As she walked with him into the shop, moved the remaining piece of cake from the serving dish to a plate and started his coffee, Marie considered the ironies of life. Her life with men usually consisted of her thinking of ways to get rid of them.

Not to get them to stay.

Standing at the high-top table closest to the coffee counter, Elliott didn't wait for his coffee before starting in on the cake. Marie grabbed a bottle of water for herself and took his drink over to him as she slid up onto one of the two stools at the tall round table. Even then, she was shorter than him by a good six inches.

Standing, it was more like a foot and a half. Which could be why she felt so safe with him.

Elliott was like a big umbrella, sheltering her from the storm that was threatening their lives.

“I'm sorry,” she blurted as she opened her water.

“For what? This is great.” He didn't even look up from the cake he was devouring.