White Hot

9

Whittling, traffic, and an attack of common sense almost kept Jeremiah from making it to Leonardo Pascarelli’s by six-twenty-five. As it was, he arrived in Palm Beach with only two minutes to spare. Griffen Welles, not Mollie, opened the front gates for him and met him in the driveway. She had on a short, sleek white cover-up over a bright pink bathing suit, her long, golden legs just the right side of too thin. She tossed back her dark curls, eyeing him with frank curiosity and maybe a little suspicion. “Mollie’s around back at the pool. I assume you’re looking for her?”

“I am.”

If Griffen were looking for a more complete explanation, she didn’t say as she led him along a beautifully landscaped walk back to the pool. He had his share of rich friends. He could certainly afford a higher lifestyle than he was living, although nothing approaching that of Leonardo Pascarelli, which was still relatively modest by Palm Beach standards. He had no interest in maintaining and protecting an expensive piece of property, never mind living in it. If Croc were there, he’d be buzzing in Jeremiah’s ear about whether Mollie had grown accustomed to her godfather’s standard of living and didn’t want to give it up.

Still, Jeremiah had to admit it was a hell of a nice backyard. The pool sparkled in the fading sun, and Deegan Tiernay was doing a deep dive off the board. He looked very young and energetic. Jeremiah watched him breaststroke underwater. It was a coolish evening, the rain at bay for now, the air laden with the smells of lush flowers and vegetation, the light shifting with the swaying of palms and oaks. There was none of the rawness and pungency of the wild swamp grasses of the Everglades to the west, a different world from Palm Beach, more Jeremiah’s kind of paradise.

Deegan surfaced at Jeremiah’s toes. “Mollie’s gone upstairs. She’ll be back down in a minute.”

He went back under, and Griffen, watching him, said to Jeremiah, “We’ve got a pitcher of margaritas. Interested?”

“No, thanks.”

She eased onto a lounge in the sun and slipped her sunglasses down over her eyes. “I haven’t been into the pool yet. I’m not hot enough yet. Mollie’s sweet to let us hang out here for the evening. It looks as if we’ll get more rain. I have a pool at my condo, but it’s not as big or as private. And needless to say, we aren’t going to hang out at Deegan’s house.” She bent a long, tanned leg. “I’m glad I wasn’t born rich. I’d hate to have the pressures on me he has on him. My folks do all right, but they’re hardly in the Atwood-Tiernay league.”

Jeremiah shrugged, remaining on his feet. After whittling, he had showered and dressed in dark trousers and dark shirt, allowing him to play either spy or dinner guest, depending on Mollie’s state of mind. He went back and forth on which he’d prefer. A couple of hours with Leonardo Pascarelli’s friends? Or a couple of hours sneaking around in the rain?

“I suppose you don’t have a lot of sympathy for that sort of pressure,” Griffen went on, her attention focused on him now, not her boyfriend in the pool.

Jeremiah shrugged. “A big trust fund and a snotty grandmother aren’t the worst life can throw at you. Deegan will figure that out pretty quick. He’s no dope.”

“That he isn’t.”

Deegan jumped out of the pool and, bypassing his towel, splashed water on her, laughing when she squealed and leaped to her feet. He grabbed her by the elbows like the kid he was and heaved her into the pool. She went in fanny first, all the way under. She bobbed up instantly, laughing, splashing, pretending she was going to kill him. Deegan sat on her chair. “Ten laps before you’re allowed out!”

She stuck her tongue out at him, looking more like a teenager herself, but eased off into the water, doing a slow backstroke. Deegan didn’t take his eyes off her. And she knew it. Jeremiah observed the proceedings with mild interest. His lifestyle did not include many twenty-one-year-old rich kids dunking their older girlfriends in a pool owned by a world-famous opera singer. He was, he thought dryly, out of his element.

“So,” Deegan said, eyes still on Griffen, “Mollie didn’t seem surprised to have you show up. I didn’t ask why not, because it’s none of my business.”

A smart lad indeed. Mollie didn’t respond too well to overprotective males, as Jeremiah himself had discovered. He supposed it came from having a flaky family. He figured she’d been left to her own devices from the time she was a tot and had learned early on how to take care of herself, responding to a sort of benign, even healthy, neglect on the part of her parents. He’d had the run of the Everglades from the time he could walk and understood that defiant gene, if not the Lavenders particularly.

“I wouldn’t underestimate her if I were you,” Deegan went on seriously. “She tends to take people at face value more readily than I would, but she’s not naive.” He talked as if he were sitting in a sociology class. He peered over at Jeremiah. “She knows you’re probably on this jewel thief story.”

This, Jeremiah thought, was true. However, he had no intention of discussing his relationship with Mollie-or his work-with her college intern. “I’d say she knows a lot.”

Deegan didn’t take the hint. “I’ve been around reporters since I could walk. You live and breathe the next story. You’re never off.” He reached for the margarita pitcher. “Mollie’s new in town, but she’s got people looking out for her. Her clients are all loyal.”

“Including Ash, the dog.”

Deegan didn’t like that one. He almost came up off his chair, but instead just angled a nasty look at Jeremiah. “You’re a real asshole, aren’t you?”

“I have my moments,” Jeremiah said mildly.

But the kid wasn’t finished. “She’s been straight with me right from the start, no BS, no coddling or hand-holding. Not just anyone would let Michael Tiernay’s son intern for them, you know. Anything goes wrong, he could ruin them. But if everything goes too well, then they look like a toady.”

“Tough balancing act.”

“It’s not one thirteen-year-old shooting another in the back, but, yeah, it’s tough.” His tone wasn’t as defensive as it could have been given the sentiment beneath his words. “I’m also known as a spoiled pain in the ass. That doesn’t help.”

“Are you?”

Deegan paused, looked back at Griffen’s long, slim, tanned body as she swam back toward their end of the pool. His mouth was grim, and he said with unexpected self-awareness, “I’m trying not to be.”

Jeremiah breathed in the fragrant air, wishing he’d had more sleep last night. He was missing something. Some connection, some fragment of insight, information, truth. Here he was, sitting by a pool in Palm Beach chatting with a rich kid who was neck deep in trying to establish his own identity. It was as if someone had transported him, Jeremiah Tabak, hard-hitting Miami Tribune investigative reporter, out of his real life and dropped him on the damned moon. This was Helen Samuel’s territory, not his.

A fragment floated by, and he grabbed it, turning to Deegan. “Your parents gave you the green light to intern with Mollie because of her relationship with Leonardo Pascarelli, didn’t they?”

Deegan seemed surprised at his insight, and admitted grudgingly, “That’s right. It allowed them to save face. They let me intern with Mollie or they’d have had to start talking cutting off the trust fund, and they don’t want to do that. Too complicated and time-consuming, too messy. So, the Leonardo connection gave them an out.” He poured himself a margarita, shrugging, distancing himself from his own emotions about his parents. He was twenty-one, the legal drinking age. What did he care? “It allowed them to postpone our day of reckoning another few months.”

“I see. Does Mollie know or does she actually think she’s getting to teach you something?”

He went momentarily sullen as he replaced the pitcher and sat back with his margarita glass. “She’s doing right by me. I’m trying to do right by her.”

“You learning anything?”

“I do my job.”

In other words, up yours, Tabak. Deegan Tiernay not only was spoiled, Jeremiah decided, but an arrogant little shit. Of course, the kid was twenty-one. He was trying to sort out his identity and responsibilities and probably had no idea, really, how goddamned good he had it. He was rich, he was Michael and Bobbi Tiernay’s only son, Diantha Atwood’s only grandson, and he had a pretty, older, successful girlfriend. Why not be full of himself?

“I don’t think Mollie realizes the extent her relationship with Leonardo colors how people around here think about her,” Deegan went on. “She doesn’t flaunt it or use it to her advantage-she doesn’t think that way-but other people do. Other people,” he said, sipping his margarita, “meaning most everyone around here.”

“Her clients?”

He shook his head. “The Leonardo connection might get them at first, but it wouldn’t keep them-and once they get to know her, they forget about him. It’s just going to be hard for her to figure out who her real friends are and who’s just pretending because of her godfather.” Deegan studied Jeremiah a moment, his damp skin drying quickly in the last of the day’s sun. “I know you think I’m a jerk. No, no, it’s okay, you’re not the first. I just…well, I do respect Mollie.”

“That’s good,” Jeremiah said.

Griffen scrambled out of the pool and snatched a towel out from under Deegan, tossing it over her shoulders as she pulled up another lounge chair and poured herself a margarita. “Are you two talking about Mollie while she’s up trying to figure out what to wear? Shame on you.” She smiled, sliding onto her chair. “Men.”

Mollie emerged from the brick walk and joined them on the terrace. She wore a little black dinner dress with a jacket that hid her bruised neck. Simple earrings, no rings, no bracelets, no necklace. Hair brushed out, pale and shimmery in the fading light. She was, Jeremiah thought as she gave him a curt nod, more stunning than she realized.

Also not sure about having him behind her gates. “As you can see, I’m running late.” Without waiting for a reply, she turned to Deegan. “Stay as long as you like. You remember how to lock up?”

“Yep. Have a good time. Griffen and I will make sure the silver stays safe.”

Mollie gave a mock shudder. “I’m beginning to understand why my parents don’t own anything. It’s too complicated.”

“What’s so complicated about locking the door and turning on the alarm system?” Deegan was highly amused. “Ah, the different worlds we live in. See you in the morning, Mollie.”

“Thanks for letting us hang out here,” Griffen said.

“No problem.”

“If the phone rings, do you want us to answer it?”

Mollie hesitated, then shook her head. “Let voice mail take it.”

Griffen nodded, and from the seriousness of her expression, Jeremiah assumed Mollie had told her about the threatening call earlier that afternoon. But she started out briskly on the walk, and he followed. “They’re madly curious about us.”

“I didn’t expect them to be here when you arrived.”

“I’ll bet. They’re going to grill you tomorrow. They might even stick around until you come home tonight. Doesn’t help that you look as if you’re going off with the devil himself.”

She cocked her head at him. “Who knows? Maybe I am.”

“Ah,” he said, “this must mean I’m not getting dinner.”

“Explaining you to my intern and my best friend is one thing.” The garage door was already open, and she unlocked the passenger door to the Jag. “Explaining you to Leonardo’s friends is quite another. And I don’t want to be duplicitous and let them believe you’re someone you’re not.”

Presumably that would be someone she’d kiss on the hood of a car in a Miami parking garage. “Then why am I going?”

“Because the dinner party is in a large house with extensive grounds. I can drop you off at the end of the driveway, and you can skulk.” She smiled at him, coolly, and Jeremiah realized on some level she was enjoying herself. “I imagine you’re good at skulking.”

He climbed into the passenger seat. “Save me a doggy bag?”

The smile wanted to become genuine, but she’d had a hard day. “I’ll slip an éclair in my handbag.” She went around and climbed in behind the wheel. “Shall we?”

“I’m game.”

She turned the key in the ignition and backed out, reshutting and locking the gates with a flick of a button. She sighed, her grip visibly loosening on the wheel. “This is crazy. You and I both know the thief isn’t going to strike tonight, not at a small dinner party in a private home, even if I am the common denominator. It’s not as if he’s struck every time I’ve gone anywhere.”

“True.” Jeremiah watched her gnaw on a corner of her lower lip, imagined himself doing much the same. It could be a long night.

“Which means you’re here on my account.” She glanced over at him, her eyes clear and focused. “You don’t want me out alone. Am I right?”

“You’re right.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“Aren’t you going to elaborate?”

“Elaborating,” he said, “would only make you nervous, and I don’t want to ruin your dinner.”

Her eyes, lightly made up in a way that emphasized their blueness, narrowed on him as she slowed for a stop sign. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Jeremiah settled back in the comfortable, expensive seat. “It means I think you wanted me here tonight because you don’t want to be out alone, and I happen to agree.”

“Oh. You’re still being protective.”

He bit back his amusement. “And you, Mollie, are being deliberately dense. If I were just being protective, you wouldn’t give a damn. You’d dismiss it as Tabak-the-SOB-reporter. What gets you is that I care.”

“About your work,” she said stubbornly.

“About you.” At her flush and abrupt pull-out from the stop, Jeremiah laughed outright. “You see? Bad enough you’ll have to eat dinner with me hovering in the bushes. Now you’ll have to fret about someone caring enough about you to risk Dobermans and electric fences.”

She frowned. “I have a lot of friends who care about me.”

“Trust me, darlin’,” he said, laying on the accent, “I’m different.”

Leonardo’s friends lived in a pale coral stucco house on the water. Mollie dropped Jeremiah off at the end of their winding, narrow driveway, where the grounds were thick with palms, vines, banyans, and live oaks. The property was unfenced. He could go unnoticed for days, never mind an evening.

She buzzed down the passenger window and said across the seat, “By the way, there are no electric fences. And no need to worry about the Dobermans.”

He frowned at her. “What Dobermans?”

“Mozart, Ludwig, Cosima.”

“Cosima,” Jeremiah repeated.

“Wagner’s wife.”

“Mollie, that’s three Dobermans.”

“Yes, and they’re all sweethearts. They’ll probably be inside tonight,” she added, “because of the rain. So, not to worry.”

He looked at her darkly, no doubt reconsidering his role as her musketeer, but she resumed her trip up the driveway, leaving him to whatever he planned to do with himself for the next two to three hours.

Within five minutes of her arrival, Mollie knew she wasn’t going to relax and forget about Jeremiah outside, listening to the crickets and on the alert for Dobermans and God only knew what as he kept her-and by extension Leonardo’s friends-from the clutches of a jewel thief. A jewel thief, she reminded herself, who had never, once, broken into one of the parties he’d robbed. What he was doing was making sure he hadn’t made a mistake about her after all and she wasn’t the thief herself.

She was absolutely sure of it, no matter how convincing he was about caring about her.

No matter how much a part of her wanted to be convinced.

If his peculiar sense of honor had misled her into believing the worst about him ten years ago, it could just as easily compel him to keep an open mind about discovering the worst about her now.

Fortunately, Leonardo’s friends were so boisterous and fun, so much like him, that she had a hard time sulking about Jeremiah’s motives. She did feel an occasional pang of guilt at having dropped him off on their property, but she knew, too, that they would understand. She was blessed, she thought, with indulgent family and friends.

And she was proud of herself for resisting a giggle of pure delight when it started to drizzle, and another when they let out the three Dobermans. They were well-trained, beautiful dogs who wouldn’t hurt an intruder, although they might converge on him if they found him, which could be scary. Apparently they didn’t, because after a few minutes, they bounded back to the roofed terrace overlooking the water, where their masters’ guests had gathered for dessert and after-dinner drinks.

It wasn’t until Mollie was halfway through her chocolate mousse cake that the subject of her Friday evening attack came up. One woman, a tireless volunteer for virtually every arts organization in Palm Beach, said Diantha Atwood was still upset about what had happened. “You can imagine how personally she would take having one of her guests attacked. It must have been horrible for you, Mollie.”

“And I understand Jeremiah Tabak was the first on the scene,” the woman’s husband said. He was a high-profile attorney, and he spoke of Jeremiah with a measure of grudging respect.

As subtly as she could, Mollie encouraged her fellow diners to tell her what they knew about him-which, she quickly discovered, was a fair amount, certainly more than she did. They said he kept reptiles and lived beneath his means. He was a frequent, popular guest on national television news shows, especially when a Miami story broke, but had no interest in television work on a full-time basis. He was known as an opinionated, irascible speaker on the rare occasions anyone got him to speak in public. He’d been linked with a number of women, but had never married. His lifetime commitment, it seemed, was to his work. He was doing what he wanted to do, and he did it well.

This was not a man who wanted the same things out of life that she did, Mollie thought. She enjoyed her work, too, but it wasn’t her life. Starting her own business had taken up much of her time in recent months, but she wanted balance in her life. Family, friends, vacations, afternoons with her feet up.

She considered herself forewarned. Or rewarned. Jeremiah was a formidable journalist, and although he hadn’t behaved unethically ten years ago, he hadn’t permitted her inside his world. Ultimately, perhaps that was why he’d lied-not for her sake, but for his own, to make sure she went back to Boston and out of his life. Loving someone scared the hell out of him.

She’d worked up a good head of steam by the time she bid her hosts good evening and started down the long, dark driveway. To hell with Tabak. She didn’t know why she’d wanted him around tonight. He was just keeping his options open. Damn him, anyway.

“Oh, shit!”

She was twenty yards up the main road before she realized she’d forgotten him. She turned around and went back, this time keeping an eye out for him and going slow enough that he’d have a chance to flag her down.

As she started around a curve, her headlights caught him.

No, not him. Another man. Thin, young, wearing dark clothes.

She stomped on the brake and held her breath, her window open to the sounds of the wind and the ocean, the pungent-sweet smells of the brush and trees. The man darted back behind a banyan tree. With a shaking hand, Mollie hit the lock on her door. She would drive up to the house and have her hosts call the police. Even if he was just a transient, he had no business on their property.

A tap came at the passenger window, and she nearly jumped out of her skin.

Jeremiah.

She rolled down the window. “You almost gave me a heart attack. Did you see that man? Where did he go?”

“He’s right behind me. His name’s Croc, and he’s a friend of mine.”

She blinked dumbly. “Croc?”

The skinny man poked his head out from behind Jeremiah and grinned. “Hey, Miss Mollie, how you doing?”

“I’m not doing very well at all at the moment. Who are you?”

“Jeremiah’s friend.”

Jeremiah grimaced. “That’s stretching it right now, Croc.”

Croc laughed. “He’s ready to string me up because I followed you two out here.” He cuffed Jeremiah on the shoulder. “But you spotted me, man. You’re not bad at this cloak and dagger shit.”

“Wait just a minute,” Mollie said. “Jeremiah, would you mind explaining to me what in hell’s going on here?”

“On our way back to your place-”

“Uh-uh. Now.”

He sighed, his patience obviously stretched beyond its meager limits. “I noticed Croc in a car behind us on our way over. I didn’t mention it because I wasn’t positive who it was, and because Croc’s not the easiest person to explain.”

“He’s your informant.” Mollie suddenly felt a chill. “He’s the one who discovered I was a common denominator.”

“The common denominator,” Croc corrected proudly.

Jeremiah shot him a look that would have silenced half of south Florida. His expression softened when he shifted back to Mollie. “I’m sorry if he scared you. He’s having trouble sorting out what’s his business and what’s not.”

“Boundary problems,” Croc said. “They go way back with me. Tabak’s been working on getting me on the straight and narrow.”

“I’ve known Croc about two years,” he said.

Mollie took in his words, trying to remain as cool as he was, as calmly professional. “And you couldn’t have told me about him.”

“Under the circumstances, no.”

“Until I meet him on a dark road in the middle of the night. Then you can tell me.”

Croc frowned. “It’s what, ten o’clock? That’s not the middle of the night.”

Mollie directed herself to him. “I could have run you over.”

“Not me. I’ve got quick reflexes.” He patted her rooftop. “Even a Jag I could dodge.”

“Croc,” Jeremiah said darkly, “if you don’t want Mollie to back up and try again, I’d shut the hell up.”

“Right,” Croc said.

Mollie felt like rolling her window up on both of them. “If anyone turns out to be missing so much as a dime-store ring tonight, I’ll have the police pay you two a visit. Consider yourselves lucky I don’t call them right now.” She gave them a fake smile. “Good night.”

And that was that. Croc started to argue, but Jeremiah grabbed him by the shirt, yanked him out of the way, and let Mollie pass. She did a neat three-point turn and continued on to the main road and out to Leonardo’s house, trying not to think about anything except the traffic, her speed, the turns she needed to make. Jeremiah had known this Croc had followed them to dinner. He hadn’t said anything. He’d been out there for the past three hours doing God only knew what, and she’d known it and had let it happen, had even made it happen. This wasn’t her property, these weren’t even her friends, not yet. They were Leonardo’s friends, and she had used them badly.

There were no two-way streets where Jeremiah Tabak was concerned.

It was something she desperately needed to remember.

“Guess you lost your ride home,” Croc said after Mollie had abandoned them.

Jeremiah gritted his teeth. It was pitch-dark, cool, raining again. “Croc, why I don’t hang you from this banyan, I don’t know.”

“What’d I do?”

“I have half a mind to drag your ass down to the police station.”

“What for?”

“Personal satisfaction.”

“Hey, I’m not your thief. For all we know, your tootsie there waltzed off with a trunkload of jewels.”

Jeremiah stopped in his tracks. He glared at Croc in the dark. With the clouds and the rain, it was not a pleasant night to be out. Croc’s shape was visible, just not any of his features. Which was just as well. The wrong look, the wrong glint in his eye, and Jeremiah didn’t know what he’d do. “Mollie is not your thief. Will you get that out of your head?”

“Okay. She’s not the thief.”

There was no conviction in his tone. Jeremiah sighed. “What’s your interest in this thing, Croc? Just explain that to me.”

“Keeps me off the streets.”

“I hadn’t noticed.”

What Jeremiah calculated was the last of the guests drove past, making it relatively safe for him and Croc to walk out on the driveway instead of in the wet brush. He didn’t mind, but Croc kept expecting alligators and snakes. “I’m probably full of spiders,” he grumbled when they hit smooth pavement.

“Good,” Jeremiah said.

“You’re a heartless bastard, you know?”

“I haven’t strangled you yet.”

“Yeah, yeah, so I should be grateful. You want a ride home?”

“My truck’s at Mollie’s. It’s not that far. I can walk.”

“What, and give her time to have your truck towed? That’ll cost you a mint. You know, she’s pissed because you didn’t tell her she was being followed.”

“If you will recall, I didn’t know for sure it was you.”

“Yep,” Croc said, “I recall.”

After he’d slipped from Mollie’s car, Jeremiah had hidden in the brush and waited for whoever had followed her to make an appearance. It was Croc’s good fortune that Jeremiah had recognized him before he’d decked him. As it was, he’d scared the daylights out of one twenty-something informant.

“My car’s down the road about a quarter-mile,” Croc said.

Jeremiah relented. “All right. You can drive me back to Mollie’s. But I suggest you crawl back into whatever hole you crawled out of and leave her the hell alone. Understood?”

“Aye-aye, mon capitaine.”

Jeremiah charged down the driveway, Croc on his heels, unruffled. That they’d managed to avoid being spotted by any of tonight’s dinner guests suggested Croc had deliberately let Mollie see him. He’d wanted to find out what she would do, and he’d wanted to meet her.

“Think about it, Tabak.” Croc was having to move fast to keep up. “If you were an innocent dinner guest and came upon a strange man in the dark, would you have rolled down your window and chatted with him? I mean, it would have made more sense if she’d tried to run me over or drove back up to the house and called the police.”

“Croc, for God’s sake. She saw me half a second after she saw you.”

“I don’t know.” They came to the end of the driveway and turned up the road. Streetlights and passing cars provided some illumination. “I think she knows I wasn’t the jewel thief. Which means she must know who it really is.”

“That’s a huge leap in logic.”

“So? Logic’s your department.” He grinned over at Jeremiah. “I consider myself a visionary.”

“Yeah, well, visionary me back to my truck.”

Croc’s car was a little red Volkswagen Rabbit that fit in Palm Beach even less well than Jeremiah’s truck. A truck was an essential piece of equipment. Gardeners could have beat-up trucks. Rich men who drove Lincolns and Mercedes during the day liked to rough it with a beat-up truck. But a rusted, ancient Rabbit with bald tires didn’t make the grade. Croc didn’t seem to care. “I’m telling you, this baby costs nothing to keep on the road.”

Jeremiah wondered who paid the insurance. And whose name it was in. He could run the license plate, but that seemed premature, a violation of the fragile trust he and Croc, aka Blake Wilder, had established. Not that the little bastard was holding up his end. He was damned lucky Jeremiah still didn’t throttle him for following Mollie.

When they arrived at Pascarelli’s, she was backing Jeremiah’s truck onto the street. It was bucking wildly. “I don’t think she’s so good with a clutch,” Croc said.

“That clutch is balky.”

Jeremiah winced at the squeal of tires and sudden silence as the engine choked. The truck was still crooked, its front tires well out into the street, but Mollie apparently had had enough. The door opened, and she climbed out.

Croc gave a low whistle. “Guess that’s a hint, huh?”

“Go home, Croc.” Jeremiah pushed open the rusting passenger door and got out. “Call me tomorrow. We’ll talk.”

This time not arguing, Croc did a quick turnaround and sped off. Jeremiah approached his truck, and Mollie, with a certain prudent wariness. “I’m surprised you didn’t let the air out of my tires.”

She turned to him, dusting off her hands as if there’d been something nasty on his steering wheel, and tossed her head back, the streetlight catching the ends of her pale hair. She still had on her little black dinner dress. “That would only encourage you to stay longer.”

He moved closer. “Mad, huh?”

“Very.”

“You deserve to be.”

She narrowed her eyes on him. “Is that an apology?”

“Mollie, I wasn’t a hundred percent sure it was Croc. I wasn’t even a hundred percent sure we’d been followed. I didn’t want to ruin your evening if I was wrong. When I tracked him down on your friends’ grounds, I could hardly waltz up to the house and come clean to you.”

She didn’t soften. “Would you have told me if I hadn’t spotted him?”

Jeremiah moved even closer, aware of the cool evening air, the shape of her under her dress, of his own ragged muscles, his hair and clothes damp from the intermittent rain, the crazy trek through underbrush. “I don’t know. I hadn’t thought that far ahead.”

“I see. Well, fair enough. Here are your keys.” She dangled them from two fingers. Jeremiah held out his palm, and she dropped them in. “Good night.”

She started back toward her open gates, casting a long shadow on the elegant brick driveway.

Jeremiah stayed where he was. “What would you do if you were trapped in there with a pack of wild dogs and your gates didn’t work?”

She arched him a mystified look. “I’d just have to get out my tranquilizer gun and tranquilize them.”

“You don’t have a tranquilizer gun.”

“You don’t have a pack of wild dogs, and my gates work fine.”

He settled back on his heels, studying her.

She couldn’t stand the scrutiny for long. “What is it?”

“How come there’s no man in your life?”

She swiveled around at him, obviously taken aback by his question. “Should there be? A woman can’t be happy and fulfilled without a man in her life?” She thrust her hands on her hips. “Why isn’t there a woman in your life?”

“Who says there isn’t?”

“You don’t have a committed relationship, a partnership, with a woman, Jeremiah. It’s not in your nature.”

He frowned. “It’s not?”

“No. Your only committed relationship is with your work.”

“Which isn’t going too well right now. I’m spending most of my time chasing a story I can’t write.”

“Because it would be unethical,” she said, with just a hint of sarcasm.

Jeremiah grinned at her. “You’re not as hard as you think you are, Mollie. You know you’ve forgiven me for ten years ago.” He moved toward her, enough of a saunter in his gait to aggravate her. He was having fun all of a sudden. And so, he was confident, was she. “It’s just killing you to admit it.”

“You changed my life. All my plans, all my expectations-everything changed after our week together.”

“Maybe it needed changing.”

“That’s not the point.”

“What’s the point?” He caught up her fingers into his, drew her just a little closer. “That I hurt you?” She blinked rapidly, not answering, and he pressed her fingers to his mouth. “I never meant to hurt you, Mollie. If I could go back and unhurt you, I would.”

He could see her throat tighten, her lips part, a spark of desire in her eyes. When he curved an arm around her back and she said nothing, didn’t pull away, he knew she was going to let the kiss happen. His mouth on hers, the taste of her, the feel of her body pressed up against his. It was the stuff of his dreams for the past decade.

And yet when his mouth did find hers, he couldn’t pretend this was anything but real. Every fiber of him flared, set afire by the taste of her, the feel of her as she wrapped her arms around him, splaying both hands on his back as if to take in as much of him as she could. He heard her sharp intake of breath as their kiss deepened, restraint vanishing. He drew her fully against him, a moan of pleasure and need escaping as he fought for air, his senses running wild, soaking up everything, the chirping of the birds, the soughing of the breeze, the hum of distant traffic, the scent of grass and flowers, all of it a detailed backdrop to the play of his tongue against hers, the light, hot kisses he trailed along her jaw.

“Ah, Mollie.” He kissed her once more on the mouth, fiercely, before he pulled back, straightened. “A good thing for curious neighbors, wouldn’t you say?”

“I suppose.” She caught her breath, reeling. “I don’t think either of us can make a case for neutrality right now.”

“I expect not.”

“You’ll wait for me to lock the gates?”

He nodded. He wouldn’t be spending the night with her. Under the circumstances, a spine-melting kiss was as much as he could expect for tonight. “Night, Mollie.”

She smiled, the stiffness of anger and self-doubt gone, a genuine openness in their place. He liked her unguarded, relaxed, not trying to pretend she wasn’t still attracted to him. “Good night, Jeremiah.” The smile faded, just for an instant, and she said quietly, “And I have forgiven you. And myself.”

She was through the gates, and as they shut, Jeremiah wondered if a little part of her wasn’t telling herself that next time, she should hope for the pack of wild dogs instead of a man who’d already broken her heart once.