Sleight Of Hand (5 page)

Chance gripped his fork until the metal bit
into his hand. He wished he knew what the agent had on him that
made him act so damned smug. If O'Sullivan stole more paintings,
and Chance was discovered in the area, he could be in deep, deep
trouble.

"An event like this must bring lots of
strangers to town." Sarah hadn't quite masked the tremble in her
voice or in her hand as she put her teacup down.

Hell. He dropped his fork.
Don't do this,
man. Don't get involved.
But, he couldn't not reach out to her.
He picked up her hand and feeling it tremble, encased it with both
of his.

"We're only getting part of the exhibition,"
Cindy explained. "The main show is in Halifax, so no, we're not
likely to get a lot of out-of-town folks. But with the school kids
and the people living along the coast, there should be a fair
lot."

Cindy frowned at Sarah. "Honey, are you all
right?"

Dark purple shadows bloomed under Sarah's
eyes as her face blanched white. She pushed her plate of food away
and huddled back into the corner of the booth.

"She's hungry and tired." He had to get rid
of Cindy before Sarah said something that might betray them. "Don't
suppose you could heat our dinners up, could you?"

"It'll take a minute. I'll nuke them." Cindy
whisked the plates on to her tray and hurried back to the
kitchen.

Like a captured bird, Sarah's hand fluttered
between his. The feeble movement chased away his exhilaration at
discovering a link between Ashley Cove and the museum theft that
had the FBI breathing down his neck.

No way was he going to feel guilty about
closing in on O'Sullivan. He snatched his hands away and turned to
confront Sarah with her father's guilt.

Her dark green eyes were dim with fear, and
he cursed O'Sullivan for the heartless bastard he was. How could
her own father put her through this?

He rubbed a hand over his face and sighed.
"There's no sense in getting all tied up in knots just yet. Things
aren't always what they appear to be."

She stayed slumped in her corner of the
booth. After a minute, she suddenly sat up straight, her eyes
bright as she stared straight ahead. "You're right." She nodded and
reached out to place a hand on his thigh.
His thigh
.

Chance sucked in his breath and held it. Did
she know what she was doing?

"At first, I thought...." She stopped and
squeezed his leg, her gaze still trained on some distant point in
front of her. He prayed to all that he held holy, that his body
wouldn't betray him. Or at the very least, Sarah wouldn't realize
the effect she had on him.

"I thought you might be dangerous. But
sometimes, like when we were talking about my grandmother, I don't
think you are."

Oh, there was danger here, all right. He
forced himself to think of icicles and all things frigid. Anything
except for Sarah's hand that rested lightly only inches away from
the growing bulge in his jeans.

Was she doing this on purpose? Chance studied
the puzzled look in her eyes. His heartbeat drummed louder in his
ears as her delicate scent drifted over to him. She smelled good
enough to eat, and God knows, he was a hungry man. For a second, he
was tempted to shift those few heavenly inches toward her to feel
her hand brush against him.

He dragged in a deep breath and tried to pull
it all together. A flash of anger swallowed his raging appetite.
Prison
. That's the thought he had to keep foremost in his
mind. Sarah, his attraction to her...well, he'd just have to learn
how to handle it.

Yeah, he nodded as he took another cleansing
breath. He shifted away from her warm touch. Piously folding his
hands on the table, he steeled himself against the instant craving
to feel her touch him again.

"Don't confuse me with one of your friends,"
he said. "You father is my ticket to freedom. That's the only thing
I'm interested in. Got it?"

She jerked out of her introspection, her eyes
wide with fear again. He picked up his coffee cup, realized it was
empty and slammed it back down on the table.

He looked at Sarah huddled into her corner of
the booth, then over his shoulder toward the kitchen. Where was
Cindy with their supper? Not that he could eat with this tight
feeling in his gut.

"I'll go see what's taking our supper so
long." He stood and escaped down the aisle to the kitchen.

Sarah stared at the red table top and
concentrated on getting her breath back. Chance's cruel words had
sliced straight through her, piercing the improbable glow that had
lingered since their kiss.

She should thank him for that, she thought,
pushing the small metal pot of tea to one side. She'd needed some
sense knocked into her. She sighed and rubbed a fingertip against
each of her throbbing temples. How could she possibly be attracted
to the man whose sole aim in life was to put her father in
prison?

Her fingers stilled. Maybe she wasn't
attracted to him. Maybe the way she'd instantly melted into that
kiss had nothing to do with Chance as a man. Didn't kidnap victims
often delude themselves into thinking they were in love with their
abductor? She'd freely followed Chance, but....

Her mind cautiously poked at an unnerving
thought. In New York, Chance hadn't pushed very hard to find out if
she knew her father's whereabouts. Almost as if...she looked up,
suddenly wanting something to use her fists on.

He'd set her up, the sneak. He'd told her
just enough to get her up here, probably hoping her presence would
draw her father out of hiding.

Well
. She straightened out of her
slouch. If that was true, it changed things considerably. She
didn't like being engineered, no more than she liked manipulating
other people. But that may be the only avenue open to her at the
moment. She'd never get to her father first if Chance continued to
control the situation. Which meant, she had to control him.

She knew exactly how to do that--if she had
the courage. Chance was attracted to her. She'd seen the way his
eyes had glazed over after their kiss. Heat spurted through her.
She crossed her legs and swung her heavily booted foot up and down
to release the tension.

She didn't want to dwell on that kiss or how
she fell into his clean, crisp smell, how his mouth mated hotly
with hers. What had come over her? The minute he'd touched her
mouth with his, any restraint she might have called upon
disappeared in a blaze of heat.

Her foot jerked faster. She planted it firmly
on the floor. Okay, the attraction was mutual. She'd use that.
She'd have Chance twisting in such tight circles, he wouldn't
remember why he came to Ashley Cove.

She jumped when he shoved their dinner plates
on the table in front of her. "They've got some kind of emergency
in the kitchen. Cindy says sorry."

"I like Cindy." She picked up her fork and
started eating, hoping the normal activity would mask her
excitement. "This is good." She looked up at Chance still standing
in the aisle beside their table.

He stared at their plates of food. "I'm sorry
if I was a little rough. I know you're worried about your
father."

She stabbed another scallop with her fork. He
wasn't playing fair. If he started being nice to her, she'd never
be able to pull off her plan.

"We're both on edge." She patted the seat
beside her, deciding to ease into her new role. "Why don't you sit
down and eat? Maybe it will improve your mood."

His gaze narrowed in a way that made her want
to squirm, but she calmly continued eating her supper.

"Yeah. Maybe it will." He watched her another
minute as if to gauge her mood, then sat and turned his attention
to his own supper.

She stared at a slice of bright red tomato as
she tried to wrestle her plan into some kind of acceptable action.
Which was a problem. Chance had to think she was interested in
exploring...well, things with him.

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched him
methodically eat his supper, as if it were an unpleasant task that
had to be done. His shuttered look masked whatever he was thinking.
When he raised his fork, she noticed his knuckles were stretched
white.

She pushed her plate to one side and hid her
trembling hands under the table. Chance was not a man to be toyed
with. If he were hunting any other man but her father, she'd be on
the next plane back to England.

"What's wrong now?" Chance's harsh tone
scraped against her raw nerves.

"Guess I'm not hungry."

He pushed his empty plate toward the middle
of the table and leaned back. "You're probably just tired. Want to
leave now?"

"Yes." A crisp walk back to the cabin might
give her the courage to start executing her plan.

Chance stood, threw two twenties on the table
and grabbed her jacket from the coat tree at the end of the booth.
He held it open, waiting to help her on with it.

Chance the gentleman. That was a match she
hadn't expected. Oddly pleased, she slipped out of the booth and
shrugged into the heavy jacket, then walked to the front door.

"Hey." Chance came up behind her and thrust
her camera into her hands. "Cameras and cell phones. Do you leave a
trail of them behind you?"

She clasped her camera to her chest before
slipping the cord around her neck. "I can't believe I forgot my
camera. That's never happened before."

"I imagine a small ticket item like a camera
wouldn't put a dent in your budget." He opened the door, took her
elbow and guided her outside.

Stung more from his chilled voice than the
damp fog that had rolled up from the shore, she dug her heels in as
he ignored the slushy sidewalk and tugged her out to the road.

"This is the first camera I ever owned. It
was a gift from my father."

"Oh." He kicked at a lump of snow by his
feet.

"I'm not rich. I work for a living."

His head reared up. "But you don't have to.
Your father complained all the time about you working. And as far
as I know, those finishing schools in Europe don't come cheap. So,
if you're not rich, where did all the money come from?"

She hunched her shoulders against his attack
and started walking down the middle of the plowed street.

He caught up to her, grabbed her elbow and
pulled her around to face him. "You don't know how he got that
money, do you?"

Not quite able to look him in the eyes, she
looked past his shoulder at the lights of a car that slowly moved
toward them.

"Sarah?" He shook her arm.

"No," she admitted in a low voice. "I
don't."

"But you have a good idea, and that's why
you're here, isn't it?"

She squinted into the harsh glare of the car
headlights a few yards behind Chance. "Chance, that car doesn't
look like it's moving over. Maybe we better get on the
sidewalk."

"Answer my questi--" The rest of the word was
drowned out by the roar of the car motor.

Chance twisted around, then spun back to her.
"Move it."

Before she had time to react, Chance dragged
her off the street. He slipped just as they reached the sidewalk,
and they tumbled down into the low lying fog and a wet pile of
snow.

He grunted as she fell on top of him. Pain
stabbed her chest. She scrunched down. Air whizzed past her as the
car screeched off into the night.

Then silence. Chance ran his hands over her
back as if to reassure himself she was still in one piece. He
cupped the back of her head and pressed her face into his neck.

"You okay?"

"Yes." Pain shot through her chest again as
she tried to move her head back far enough to see him. "Ow. No. I
hurt."

His arms tightened around her. "Where?"

"My chest, I think."

"Okay, here's what we're going to do. I'm
going to help you put your arms around my neck, like this." He
encircled her wrists with his hands and slowly drew her arms up to
his neck. "Now, you hold on, and I'm going to sit up. Okay?"

Her arms tightened. "What if they're still
there?"

"They're gone. Didn't you hear them peel out
of here?"

His deep voice rumbled through his chest. For
some reason, the raspy sound reassured her. "Yeah. Maybe I
did."

"Okay, here we go."

He eased upright and cradled her against his
big body.

"Am I hurting you?"

"No." She dropped her arms away from his
neck. "I'm okay. I...oh."

"What? What's wrong?" He pushed her hands
away from the front of her jacket.

"My camera." She picked a broken piece out of
her lap and stared at it.

"How about your chest? Take a deep breath and
tell me if it hurts."

She looked at her broken camera, pulled it
from around her neck and held the crushed instrument out to him.
"It's broken."

"I know, honey. Maybe we can get it fixed."
He took the camera from her and shoved it in his pocket. "Right now
I need you to tell me if it hurts when you breathe."

"No. I'm okay. It was just my camera poking
into...." Her voice broke. Damn. She wiped a tear away with the
back of her glove. She hated crying.

"Come here." He gathered her close to him.
"Go ahead and cry if you want. I guess I'd feel the same way."

"You would?" It felt good to lean on him for
a minute. Solid and comforting.

"My dad gave me a jack knife when I was
twelve." He rubbed her back in a circular motion. "A couple of
years ago, I thought I lost it and spent two days tearing my
apartment apart looking for it."

She looked into his smiling eyes. "Did you
find it?"

"Of course." He grinned. "I'd still be
looking for it if I hadn't."

"Do you still have it?"

"Yeah."

"Can I see it?"

His eyes softened as the timber of his voice
turned low and husky. "Yeah."