The Ring on Her Finger (7 page)

“I always thought he was so nice, Phoebe. You really should have taken him more seriously.”

“He has an extra toe on his left foot,” her friend said. “It creeped me out. Anyway, he said from what he’s heard down at the station, the Russian mob is involved somehow, but that part is all hush-hush, and no one is talking about it.”

“
The Russian mob
?” Lucy repeated incredulously. “Archie was mixed up with the mob?”

“Not just any mob,” Phoebe said. “The Russian mob. According to Dave, they make the Sicilians look like those singing ragamuffins from ‘Annie.’”

“Holy moly.”

“Yah.”

Had Lucy thought she was panicked before? Gosh, had she been mistaken. What she felt at the moment went way beyond panic.
Fear
was a much more appropriate word. So were
terror
and
abject horror
.

“Phoebe, what have I gotten myself into?”

“You didn’t get yourself into anything,” Phoebe told her firmly. “That moron Archie did. And we’re going to get you out. Don’t worry. It’s just going to take a little time, that’s all.”

“But what if the mob is looking for me, too?”

“Sing a couple choruses of ‘Tomorrow.’ God knows that scared the hell outta me when I saw it. Of course, it was the traveling production...”

“Ha-ha.”

“Look, just sit tight,” Phoebe instructed. “I’ll keep up with things at this end. No one could possibly find you where you are. You’re perfectly safe there.”

Except for wild dog Max living across the hall, Lucy couldn’t help thinking. Naturally, she said nothing of that to Phoebe. Instead, she said, “Hurry, Phoebe, okay? I’m not sure how long I can do this.”

“You’ll be fine,” Phoebe said. “Just...don’t panic.”

As she hung up the phone, Lucy glanced down at Alexis Cove’s list again, focusing intently on the collection of letters and numbers. Maybe if she just concentrated really hard this time, it would all make sense. But the harder she tried to understand it all, the less sense all of it made.

Different learning pattern, she told herself. That was why she had so much trouble with this kind of thing.

Don’t panic
, she repeated morosely to herself.

Yeah, right.

Max was pondering what to do about the funny ca-chunking sound coming from beneath the hood of Justin’s 1937 Bugatti Type 57SC Atlantic-Electron coupe—man, did that guy know cars—when he decided to call it a day. Everyone else had done that hours ago, back when it still actually was day, so why shouldn’t he now that the sky was smudged purple in the west? Just because he hated to quit when there was something left undone? Just because when he wasn’t working on cars, it left his mind open to think about other things he’d really rather not think about? Just because it meant he had to go upstairs and spend the rest of the night—the long, lonely night—in his apartment—his quiet, lonely apartment—knowing that right across the hall slept the lovely and talented Juicy—ah, Lucy—French?

Carefully, he lowered the black Bugatti’s hood, stroking his hand over the smooth metal surface as it clicked lovingly into place. He loved cars. More than anything else in the world. He loved their luscious curves, their well-toned figures, their elegant beauty. He loved the way they handled, the way they rode, the way they sounded, the way they smelled. He loved the pump of their pistons, the murmur of their motors, the tremor of their tires as they took an unexpected, curve. He loved the volume, the vibration, the velocity. He’d been born with a carburetor for a heart and petrol flowing through his veins, and he never quite felt comfortable unless he was seated in the driver’s side of a well-honed machine.

You could trust cars. The good ones, anyway. And you could always tell the good from the bad. They weren’t like people. With cars, even the worst lemons you could spot with one test drive.

He wiped a clean rag over the hood of the Bugatti, rubbing away the evidence of his fingerprints upon it. Would that life could be cleaned up so easily. Unfortunately, there were stains on Max’s life that weren’t ever going to come out, no matter how hard he scoured. So he might as well just learn to live with them.

And he was learning to live with them. Pretty much. Or, at least, he had been. Until pretty Lucy French and her short, snug skirt came along. Now she would be living only a few feet away from him for months. Then again, there was something kind of appropriate about that. Max had taken this job five years ago because he’d wanted to punish himself, surrounding himself with beautiful cars that would never—could never—be his. Adding Lucy to the mix, knowing she would never—could never—be his only compounded that punishment. He ought to be overjoyed by her arrival.

After wiping off his hands as best he could, he tossed the rag into a basket with the rest of his dirty laundry—well, the dirty laundry he could see, anyway—then switched off the lights. In the bluish end-of-day light that filtered through the carriage house windows, he almost felt as if he’d been carried back in time. Justin didn’t keep any cars out here that had been built after World War II, and from where Max stood, he could see first the Bugatti, then the 1933 Duesenberg SJ Arlington Torpedo sedan, then the 1937 Mercedes-Benz 540K Special coupe, an exceptionally beautiful machine. And then came the 1930 Isotta-Fraschini 8A SS cabriolet, with its spectacular radiator mascot, an Art Deco angel with wings spread back and arms stretched forward, as if she were reaching for the sky itself.

Then, suddenly, Max was thinking about Lucy again.

He expelled a soft sound of frustration, raked an oily hand through his hair, and tried to banish the thought. He remembered he hadn’t had supper and wondered if he could catch Mrs. Hill or Rosemary up at the big house. He remembered, too, the way Lucy had looked at him earlier that afternoon, the clear curiosity etched on her face when he’d been reluctant to enter the kitchen. He hadn’t known what to say to her then, so he hadn’t said anything except that entering the house wasn’t allowed.

But that wasn’t because Justin and Alexis didn’t want him in the house, as he was certain Lucy had concluded. It was because Max didn’t allow himself there. The place reminded him of too many things he’d just as soon forget, of a life he’d never have again. A life he didn’t deserve, or even want, so what was the big deal? Still, he wondered if Mrs. Hill or Rosemary might still be up there, and if they’d bring him something to eat. If not... Well, he probably had a box of crackers or something in the apartment.

Or maybe he could see if Lucy—

No. He couldn’t do that.

The clock hanging at the far end of the carriage house read nearly nine-thirty—boy, time flew when you were working on beautiful cars and thinking about pretty housekeepers—so he knew Mrs. Hill would be gone. Rosemary, too, would probably have turned in by now, because she never strayed far from Abby once the girl was in bed.

His stomach rumbled softly. He wouldn’t be able to sleep unless he had something to eat. Ah, what the hell? Justin had made it clear when he hired him that Max had the run of the house. Of course, Alexis had quickly countered that that meant the public rooms only. Not that Max had ever considered any part of Harborcourt to be public, since the Coves restricted guests to only the cream of polite society. Still, he shouldn’t feel uncomfortable in a house where he’d been told he was welcome, right? Especially since there had been a time when he’d been the cream of polite society himself. Well, society, anyway. He’d never much been considered polite back then. And maybe he’d been more of the spoiled cream. Still, he shouldn’t feel uncomfortable in Harborcourt. Even if he did.

When he rang the bell at the back of the house, it was—of course—Lucy who opened the back door to him. She still wore her clothes of earlier in the day, and Max’s gaze went right to the scooped neck of her top. Immediately, he found himself wanting to run his open mouth along first one delicate collarbone, then the other, to see if she tasted as sweet as she looked. Oh, yeah, he was getting hungrier by the minute. But not for the dinner he’d initially come for.

“Hi,” Lucy said.

He told himself it must just be a trick of the light, the way her eyes seemed brighter and her cheeks looked rosier, and her lips appeared plumper than they had that afternoon. Then he remembered that it was nighttime and there was no light to be playing tricks. Then he wondered how that could be, when he suddenly felt so warm and sunny inside.

“Hey,” he replied automatically. “I, uh...I missed dinner,” he added by way of explaining his appearance.

She nodded a little jerkily. “Rosemary told me you’d probably come by for something when you didn’t show up earlier. She said you work late a lot.”

Did he? He didn’t feel like he worked that much later than other people, any more often than they did. Just because he was always exhausted at day’s end, and just because it was usually dark when he finished, and just because it didn’t get dark in the summer ’til sometimes ten o’clock, that didn’t mean anything. Did it?

“Looks like you’re working late, too,” he pointed out.

“I, ah, I have a party to plan.”

“Mrs. Cove put you right to work, did she?”

Lucy gave that herky-jerky nod again. Funny, she still seemed to be nervous about something. Then again, it was her first day on the job. And God knew Alexis Cove could scare the crap out of anybody when she turned that Mrs. Freeze look on a person. Even after five years, Max didn’t feel comfortable around her.

Lucy stepped aside to allow him entry, and he tried not to notice as he strode by her how good she smelled, all sweet and soft and womanly. He tried, too, not to notice how clean she was compared to his own grimy self. Even though he’d washed his hands before leaving the carriage house, he felt dirty next to her. But that didn’t have anything to do with Lucy. It didn’t have anything to do with the grease on his clothes, either.

“There’s some leftover chicken,” she said.

He also tried not to notice how nice she sounded when she spoke, how her voice was breathy and melodic and touched with a gentleness that reached too deep down inside him.

“And rice,” she added as he continued walking across the mud room. “There’s also some salad and, I think, squash. But Abby may have finished that.”

He willed her not to follow him into the kitchen, but she was obviously too nice to pick up on that vibe. Instead, she eased past him, beating him to the refrigerator. In an effort to drive his gaze away from her, Max glanced over at the desk and saw papers fanned out, and a phone book open. He also saw pieces of paper crumpled up and a pencil broken in two, and he realized he was keeping her from her work.

“I’ll get that,” he said as she started to reach into the refrigerator for the leftovers. He tilted his head toward the clutter on the desk. “Don’t let me keep you from what you were doing.”

Lucy followed his gaze to the desk and grimaced eloquently. When she looked back at Max, he got the impression that she wished he would keep her from her work. “That’s okay. I could use a little break. Besides, Rosemary offered to help me with it tomorrow.”

She started to pull a covered dish from the refrigerator, so Max leaned forward, preparing to take it from her. His shoulder bumped hers in the process, and he fancied he could feel the heat of her bare arm seeping through his work shirt into his muscle beneath. When his hand closed over hers to take the dish from her, he couldn’t quite keep from flinching. Her hand was just so warm and soft beneath his, the way the rest of her would be warm and beneath him when they—

He heard her gasp at the contact and wondered if she was thinking the same thing he was. And it was only because she was so easy to read that he was able to catch the dish when it tumbled from her fingers.

“I...I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I...it slipped out of my hands.”

“No problem. I’ve got it,” he said, gripping the dish more tightly than was necessary.

“You certainly do,” she said, so softly that he wondered if she’d intended for him to hear it.

He was going to ask her what she meant by the comment, but judging by the look on her face, he was probably better off not knowing. So he took the dish to the counter and flipped off the plastic lid, finding Mrs. Hill’s extremely delectable poached chicken on wild rice beneath. He was turning to collect the rest of the leftovers when he realized—too late—that Lucy had already retrieved them and was bringing them his way. Once more, their bodies connected, this time front to front, and in addition to a frisson of electricity rocking him, a plate of salad tumbled to the floor at his feet.

Then he and Lucy were both stooping to clean up the spilled food, their arms, hands and fingers tangling, both of them apologizing, neither hearing the other or paying attention to anything except extricating themselves, succeeding only in making matters worse, until finally they bonked their heads together hard enough to send them both slamming back on their fannies. For one brief moment, they looked at each other blankly, both rubbing their foreheads, neither seeming to understand what just happened. Then, as one, they started to laugh. Hard. As they laughed, the tension and awkwardness that had settled over them evaporated.

For all of ten seconds.

Then Max made the mistake of looking at the spilled food. But it wasn’t the spilled food that captured his attention. Lucy had landed with her legs sprawled open, and before he could catch himself—without meaning to, honest—he caught a glimpse of black lacy panties beneath her hiked-up skirt. She must have noticed what he was noticing, because she hastily scrambled to her knees and yanked down her skirt. Without speaking, but blushing lavishly, she pushed herself to standing and raced to the other side of the kitchen to wrestle a roll of paper towels from the holder over the sink.

Oh, damn. Max really wished he hadn’t seen that feathery lace covering that silky part of a woman every man fantasized explicitly about. Especially Max, since fantasizing was the only thing he was able to indulge in these days where women were concerned. It had been a long time since he’d enjoyed an actual glimpse of an actual woman’s actual underthings. He’d almost been able to make himself forget what a view like that could do to a man like him. A man who had a voracious sexual appetite and a history of satisfying it whenever and wherever he wanted. Now that he had enjoyed an actual glimpse of an actual woman’s actual underthings, and now that he did remember what it could do to a man like him...