Set Up (30 page)

Then this.

There was no reason to be surprised, knowing women as he did. But he'd actually believed Amanda was different. He had come frigging near to trusting her, damn it.

What made him the sickest, what made him despise himself, was that he still wanted her so much that his stomach knotted into a ball thinking about her.

When she approached his post, keeping a little apart from the group getting off her bus, he wanted to go over and seize her, shake her and kiss her until she melted into him as she had the past night.

Instead, he hid behind his newspaper and watched her wander toward the big pyramid towering over them, its cold barbaric dignity a reminder of ancient human sacrifices offered up to the gods.

He wouldn't mind adding another to its list of offerings. Maybe that would ease the ache in his heart.

Neat in red capris and sleeveless knit top that outlined her breasts, Amanda strolled unaware of being observed. Though frequently stopping and scanning her surroundings, she didn’t spare more than a passing glance in Cal's direction.

As she moved farther into the park, he got up to follow. He kept out of sight in the shade of the wild growth that, despite the park service's heroic efforts to keep eradicated, sprang up in sporadic clumps between the time-battered buildings.

The midday heat was stifling. He'd hate to be here in summer.

When Amanda paused to wipe the sweat off her forehead, he paused and lit a cigarette. She cocked her head to one side in perplexity.

Damn her. He watched the long neck twist as she searched the tourists. He'd kissed that neck last night, put his lips right on the pulse at her collarbone and felt her laugh gurgle up, her enchanting laugh that turned her eyes smoky and languorous.

In the end, he spotted Noelle before Amanda did. The slight form in puffy blouse and shorts came out from behind one of the nearby weatherworn buildings and, face protected by a big hat and sunglasses, came up to Amanda's back and touched her arm.

Amanda jumped, turned, grabbed her sister and hugged her.

Swallowing bile, Cal hurled his cigarette down.

Time for his big entrance.

“What were you planning to do?” Amanda's question was loud enough for interested bystanders to hear.

Cal loitered behind a palm tree and eavesdropped.

Noelle's voice, thin and querulous, echoed the nervous mouth and twitchy body. “Manda, I'll go home and never do anything like this again. I swear I’ll be good.”

“Listen to me and listen hard. You and I are in a lot of trouble.”

“I know, but I didn’t mean us to be. And I don’t know how to fix it.”

Amanda, shoulders set with a resolve Cal recognized from the past few days, said with a firmness he didn’t expect, “I do. Callaway McIntyre's agreed to buy plane tickets home for you and not press charges against us. But only if you tell him everything.”

“Do you believe him? You don't know what he's like. He'll put me in jail.” Noelle sniffled.

The crisp Amanda Cal remembered said, “Don't be ridiculous. He'll keep his word, but we have to help him.”

Hah. All Noelle had to do was cry and Amanda would cave.

He started toward them.

“Noelle, you and I are in bad trouble. Do you understand that? If Cal had gone to the police, we could be in jail right now. But I've told him everything. He knows you lied.” Amanda stopped for a deep breath. “Sonny Kirkman talked you into it, didn't he? So he could steal Cal's diamonds?”

At that moment, she saw Cal. Her mouth stayed open.

He would have laughed, except that Noelle, following her sister's gaze, yipped and took off running.

Hell and damnation, she's not about to get away!

He dashed after her, used a flying tackle to bring her down.

She shrieked as her hat and sunglasses flew off.

Several tourists gasped.

He smiled at them as he got up. “Iguana got after her.” He yanked the protesting Noelle to her feet and, gripping her arm firmly, brushed off her shorts. “I told her you can't run from them, but women. They never listen.” Turning to Noelle in a solicitous manner, he said audibly, “Stop screaming, sugar. The little fellow's long gone.” He added,
sotto voce
, “You and your damned sister'll both be in jail if you don't shut up.” An added pinch subdued her.

The group of senior citizens, excusably shocked by the exhibition, scurried to give Cal and Noelle plenty of room. One woman handed Noelle the dropped sunglasses and hat before backing off.

Several were upset. Cal reassured them by putting on a solemn face. “You can't run from iguanas, folks. If one starts toward you, hold your ground. If you're lucky, he'll respect you enough to back off.”

“You mean they're dangerous?” a short, anxious man asked. “They're such cute little things.”

“The tour people said not.” His companion, made of sterner stuff, had recovered from her shock. Iron gray curls shook in indignation at being misled. “Wait till I see that agent. I bet I'll give him what for, failing to warn…”

“Letting us out among dangerous animals…”

“I told you they were looking at me funny.”

“Is she all right?”

Callaway, assuring would-be assisters that Noelle was fine, led her, face ashen, out of the ring of disturbed onlookers and toward where Amanda stood.

Amanda hadn’t moved. When he brought Noelle back, he didn’t hide his contempt. “I have a plane waiting. We'll discuss this in air conditioning.”

Noelle whimpered and tried to pull away, but a jerk on her arm changed her mind. A docile Amanda followed. He looked back once, to find her with back ramrod straight and cheeks blazing.

He wished he was holding her instead of Noelle. Noelle might have instigated the theft of his studs, but Amanda had betrayed him personally. Maybe he’d invited it, dammit, wanting to believe her, wanting to make love to her, but she had been the betrayer. He had willfully disregarded his record for misjudging women and see what had happened.

How wise he'd been to put aside the temptation to say, “I love you,” and hold his tongue. Too bad his wisdom didn't help the hollowness in his chest.

He wanted to yank Noelle’s damned arm out of its socket but didn't. No need to take his anger at Amanda out on her sister.

He'd never felt so foolish or been so furious.

* * * *

Amanda had never been so mystified. She'd known Callaway would be annoyed, but such rage!

Why? Because she'd gone to Noelle without him? When he calmed down, he'd see that her way had been better, otherwise they might have lost Noelle altogether.

Callaway, though he slammed the door of the ancient Jeep transporting them to the air strip, didn't touch her. At the air strip, he thrust her into the plane after Noelle with none of the gentle solicitude of the past night. His bulk crowded her against the tiny seat.

“We'll be a little tight, but you don't mind being squeezed against a man, do you, Amanda?” he asked with the mocking smile she hated. “Any man,” he added with a certain bitterness. “We're all the same to you, aren't we? Expendable so long as we suit your purposes.”

How had the tender lover of the previous night morphed into this hard stranger?

“Callaway,” she started.

No, this was no place to discuss this. Not with Noelle sitting here listening to every word.

The plane was noisy and small. Noelle snuffled into tissues, Cal sat in icy silence, and Amanda's head began to hurt.

When they got back to the hotel, Noelle retreated to the bathroom.

Amanda spoke to him, one eye on the bathroom door. “I can tell you're angry.”

“How perceptive of you.” He was as remote as he'd been in the cottage at Fair Meadows.

“Is it because I went to Noelle without you? If I'd told you, you'd have insisted on going, too. And if we both showed up, Noelle would never have come out of hiding. She would have run away again.”

“You think so?” The rigid lines of his body said that he didn't give a fig for her opinion.

“You know she would have.”

“You don’t think if you’d bothered to confide in me, I could have worked around her seeing me?”

Before she could answer his scathing rejoinder, he went on, “Oh, hell, why should it matter? You know by now I'm a pushover when it comes to women. I won't make the same mistake again, though. Not with you. Johanna always says that I don't think straight when it comes to my prick. I guess you proved she's right.”

“Callaway.” Too late Amanda understood. He believed the past night had been another subterfuge on her part, a trick to make it easier for her to elude him. She touched his arm.

He jerked away.

“I wanted to be with you last night,” she said, in a low tone that wouldn’t carry to Noelle in the bathroom. “I chose to be with you. Whatever you think, I didn't go to bed with you to make meeting Noelle easier. I wanted to make love to you.”

He snorted. Then Noelle crept out, subdued and frightened, to put an end to their brief conversation.

Callaway, still formidable, put Noelle on the sofa and sat down beside her. “You are a very fortunate woman, Noelle.” His flat voice in no way hid the threat. “I'm not going to slap you around physically the way I did your sister. And I'm not going to have you charged with accessory to theft. Not yet. I'm going to listen to you. And if you tell me what I want to know, we might be able to forget Houston altogether. Understand?”

Noelle shrank back and wrapped her arms about herself. Fresh tears welled.

Amanda bit her lip. No wonder Noelle was terrified. Callaway would give anyone pause.

Five days earlier, this stony stranger would have terrified her, but she knew him now, as well as the considerate heart under the intimidating mask. She wanted to comfort her sister, tell Noelle everything would be all right, but couldn’t bring herself to do it.

Callaway had a right to question Noelle. Noelle would have to answer.

“It’s all right, honey. No one’s going to hurt you,” she said gently. “Tell us how you came to think of using your ring to get me into Cal’s safe.”

Noelle trembled. “Sonny thought of it. He promised no one would ever know you were involved, Manda. You don't hate me, do you?”

“Of course not. Go on, tell us what happened.”

Cal’s lip curled. He would assume she was siding with Noelle.

I'm not,
she wanted to cry.
Can’t you understand I'm trying to help you?

No, he was too busy questioning Noelle. “Did you get the combination for the safe from Sonny?”

Noelle plucked a cushion from the sofa, put it in front of her and held on for dear life. She gave one jerky nod.

“What did he want?”

“Your diamonds. He said everyone would think Amanda had taken them but that they wouldn’t be able to find her so she wouldn’t get in trouble.” Tears filled her eyes. “He promised.”

Amanda sat back.
Noelle, Noelle. After all the talks we had, all the discussions of right and wrong...

Callaway kept on. “What did he do with the diamonds?”

Noelle shook her head. “I don’t know. Somebody offered him a lot of money for them.”

“Who?”

Noelle looked like a cornered deer. “I don't know. Some man who collected old jewelry.”

Callaway changed tactics. “How much money are we talking about?”

“A lot, I guess. Sonny never said.”

“Sonny had five hundred thousand dollars on him when he was killed,” Callaway murmured.

Amanda straightened. “From the sale of your diamonds?”

“Who knows. They were worth millions. If that’s all he got, he was gypped.”

Nicole looked from one to the other. She kept hugging and releasing the cushion. “I just did what Sonny told me. He didn’t think you’d care,” she said to Callaway. “You’ve got so much money he said you’d never miss it.”

Callaway clenched his jaw. “How did you come up with the idea of using Amanda?”

“One time I told him how Amanda used to wrap any man she met around her little finger, and he remembered.”

Oh Noelle
.

Amanda wanted to cry. Her sister was
proud
of her for being a flirt. The type of woman who could get a man killed.

“How did you meet Sonny?” Callaway asked.

“How did I meet him?” Noelle's blue eyes glistened. “Oh. Em knows him. Knew him.”

“One of her friends,” Amanda said. “One Edward didn’t approve of.”

Callaway ignored her. “So you told Sonny about Amanda. And he thought of using her to get to me.”

Noelle nodded. “When he started thinking of ways to get the diamonds, he asked if I thought Amanda could seduce you. I was sure she could.”

“And you were right,” Cal said tonelessly.

Amanda slumped.

Noelle said hesitantly, “It seemed like a good plan. I thought you'd never know who she was, but we’d have the money.” She broke off, darting a glance at Amanda. “No one should have been able to connect you, Manda.”