Читать книгу Sinfully Sweet - Carrie Alexander, Carrie Alexander - Страница 9

DEVLIN EXPECTED Mackenzie to scream, fight, run. Instead she calmly said goodbye to the “officer,” then closed and secured the door, turning locks and sliding bolts with a certain steady resolution. Snick, chunk, chunk.

She turned to face him. Her eyes were huge and glistening. Her lips were puffy, deepened in color to the bright pink of arousal. She kept touching the raw red spot at the corner of her mouth with her tongue.

Guilt over hurting her threaded through him, but he ignored it. She was a big girl. She could take it.

Her expression had become mulish. She was finally getting ticked by his high-handedness. “All right, now, Devlin. No more lies. I want to know why you kissed me.”

What? He almost laughed. That was what she asked? “Not who I killed?”

“Did you? Kill someone?”

“No.”

“And the other charges?”

He dropped his chin a notch, ran a hand through his wet hair. His entire body ached, but he was trying to seem unworried, as if he had no concerns over trusting her with his life when he was beginning to realize that Mackenzie Bliss had changed. She wasn’t as reliable as she used to be. Nor as meek.

“Guilty,” he said.

She sucked in a gasp. “You’ve been in prison.”

“Yes.”

“And you’re in trouble again.”

“Yes.”

“And you—” her tongue flicked over her lip “—you came to me.”

“Only because I knew you lived in this area.” And I was running for my life.

“So I’m a convenience.”

“One night,” he said. “That’s all I need.”

“What happens in the morning?”

“Not your concern.”

“Argh.” Making an irritated sound at his stonewalling, she closed her eyes and rested her head against the door. He wanted to stay there and keep looking at her—keep an eye on her, that was—but Sloss and Bonaventure might still be lurking outside. If he was lucky, they hadn’t seen which building he’d entered and were going door-to-door up and down the entire block, as Mackenzie had suggested.

Devlin went into the living room and checked out the front window, parting the moss-colored velvet drapes the smallest sliver. Sloss and Bonny were standing on the street, arguing. Sloss would win, but Bonny wouldn’t know it until tomorrow. He was more concerned with dabbing at the watermarks on his hundred-dollar silk tie.

Sloss took out a cell phone and had a brief conversation. Devlin knew what the command from their greedy boss, Boris Cheney aka Fat Man, would be: get the ruby back from Devlin by any means necessary. Sloss was the man for the job. Even the most drastic method wouldn’t cost him a wink of sleep, though he didn’t look happy about the long night ahead as he flipped up his phone. He and Bonny waited for a delivery van to go by, spraying rainwater from its wheels, before stepping off the curb. Sloss stopped to fish something out of the gutter, but Devlin couldn’t see what had interested him. Bonny had already sprinted across the street and was buzzing apartments on the other side, trying to get into another building. That was good. They hadn’t pinpointed his location.

Devlin watched until they disappeared inside. There was always some idiot occupant who’d let a stranger in just to stop the buzzer noise from disturbing their TV program.

He turned. Mackenzie was there, waiting, curled up in a big, plush armchair. She’d wrapped her arms around herself to contain her shivering. Cursing the unexpected tenderness she made him feel even now, he took a blanket off the back of the couch and draped it over her.

The room was filled with shadows, but his eyes were accustomed to the dark and he was able to examine her furnishings. Matching decor, flower arrangements, family photos in silver frames. It was exactly the kind of place he’d expected Mackenzie to live in—aside from the lack of smiling hubby and two cherubic children.

He squinted at her. “Thanks for not turning on the lights.”

She shrugged.

He sat. No use waiting for an invitation anymore.

Mackenzie was silent. Although she’d calmed down as he’d known she would, she still didn’t look particularly accepting of his story. Smart girl.

She put a hand to her hair, restlessly fingering the short strands. He couldn’t get used to Mackenzie Bliss with short hair. She’d always had a long, luxuriant mane, the color of sable. Sometimes, back in high school, he’d caught himself wondering how her hair would feel, brushing over his bare chest. And how Mackenzie would feel naked, so soft and warm and curvy no pillows would be necessary if they spent the night together.

She opened her mouth. “I still want to know why you kissed me.”

“It was an impulse.”

Her eyes glinted like steel. That was new. “No, it wasn’t. You had a purpose.”

“You’re right.” She was much sharper than the dreamy girl he remembered. “I needed to convince you.”

“And you thought kissing me was the way to do it?” She tried to sound insulted, but the quaver in her voice betrayed her. “Do I look that des—that stupid?”

“Not stupid,” he said. And not desperate, either.

“Then what?” she snapped.

He gave her a cocky, I-know-you-think-I’m-sexy grin. “Susceptible.”

She clamped her lips shut and let a silence well between them, a silence filled with their mutual knowledge that she’d had a crush on him all through high school and that he’d known it and used her devotion to his advantage whenever it suited him. He hadn’t been cruel or thoughtless with her feelings. But he had taken her for granted, letting her do the homework he’d neglected, relying on her cram sessions to get him through exams, allowing her to cover for him when there’d been a school vandalism investigation. Back then, the one constant in his life was that she’d always been there, ready and eager to help, gazing adoringly up at him through her big dark eyes. She’d made him feel valuable, important. The buddies who’d believed they were so tough had mocked her as Little Miss Priss and urged Devlin to get into her pants already, but he’d actually liked and respected Mackenzie. She was a nice girl. He’d kept his hands off her because he knew she “loved” him and there was no way he was getting involved in heavy shit like that.

A good plan, even now. No doubt her crush was long over, but he was betting that she had remained the type of girl who took sex and relationships seriously. He never had and never could, as long as he continued in his present circumstances.

“Susceptible,” she repeated scornfully. “You have got to be kidding. High school was ten years ago. I’m not the innocent, gullible schoolgirl I was then.”

But she had covered for him. He wondered why.

Not because of the kiss. It had been even more fierce than he’d intended. Once he’d felt her mouth under his, sensation had taken over. Yes, his intentions had been manipulative and crude. But the emotion that had resulted was unexpected.

Blame it on auld lang syne. High-school reunion. Lost youth. A handy excuse, said the distant, stubborn, ethical part of him that refused to die.

“So then why don’t you call the cops,” he said, getting an idea.

Her head jerked up. “What?”

“Tell them there are two suspicious men prowling the area. You don’t have to leave your name.”

“But…” She blinked a couple of times, scowling deeply as the various scenarios hit home. He could tell when she figured it out. She inhaled with amazement, her mouth dropping open. “Those men aren’t the police.”

He ticked a finger at her.

“Who are they?”

Sloss and Bonny were in charge of a ring of thieves and petty criminals who fenced their goods at Cheney’s pawnshops. Devlin was supposedly one of their minions. For now Mackenzie would have to believe that.

“You don’t want to know.” He cut her off when she started to protest. “Trust me, the less I tell you, the better.”

“God, Devlin. What are you involved in?”

He shifted, becoming more and more aware of that uneasy, niggling voice inside him. Enough common decency was buried somewhere in there that he knew he shouldn’t be using Mackenzie this way. His being in her neighborhood wasn’t as complete a coincidence as he wanted her to believe. Ever since he’d seen the reunion invitation and class roster a month ago, he’d been thinking about her. Curiosity, he’d told himself, and nothing more. No way was he planning to come near her—that was too dangerous for both of them.

Yet here he was.

The irony was not delicious.

“I know, I know,” she said. “If you tell me, you have to kill me.” She laughed with a hollow sarcasm.

“That’s not even funny.”

Her face fell. She nipped at her bottom lip, then winced when that hurt. “Why do you want me to call the cops? I would think you wouldn’t want them anywhere near here.”

“They’ll do at least a drive-by and Sloss—” He tilted his head toward the street. “Those two will leave. Then I can leave.” He paused. “That’s what you want, right?”

“Yes, of course. But I don’t want you to get killed, either.”

“I’ll go out the back.”

“There’s not much cover back there. What if they’re waiting for you?”

Devlin had thought of that. Sloss was a bulldog—slow, thorough and unrelenting. He’d nose into every building and sniff out every avenue of escape before he was satisfied that Devlin had given them the slip. Even police intervention wouldn’t keep Sloss out of the way for long.

“Are you arguing for me to stay?”

Mackenzie looped the blanket over her shoulders, shawl-style. Her hair had dried into spikes and her nylons bagged at her knees and ankles. She looked like a punk grandma. “I guess you can sleep on the couch.”

“Thanks.” He let out a soft groan as he settled back. His ribs ached fiercely from Bonaventure’s vicious kicks. Judging by the stickiness where his shirt was plastered to his skin, the nasty thug had managed to draw blood, as well. After Bonny had caught Devlin supposedly stealing from the latest haul, he’d called in Sloss and they’d taken him to a waterfront warehouse and alternated between questioning and beating him. He hadn’t given up a single incriminating detail. After three months on this job, there was no way in hell he’d be made by two small-time crooks.

Mackenzie sat forward, rocking nervously. “Okay. I’ll make the call, if you think that will scare them off. But first you have to tell me the truth. How did you land on my doorstep? Were you waiting for me to come home?”

“No. This isn’t a social call, Mackenzie. I swear I wouldn’t be here if those two thugs hadn’t been breathing down my neck. I never meant to endanger you.”

“Yet you were ‘in the neighborhood.’ You knew my address.”

“I explained that. It was coincidence.” A slight exaggeration. He’d thought he’d lost Sloss and Bonny the first time, after he’d worked free of the ropes and slipped out of the warehouse while they argued over what to do with him. Getting out of their neighborhood had seemed like a good idea—until he realized that he had no money, no weapon, no ID and nowhere to go. It wasn’t as though he could walk into a pawn shop and cash out the ruby he’d managed to squirrel away.

He’d headed for Broadway, where there would be plenty of people around for safety. Because Mackenzie had been on his mind—he had to think of something pleasant and real to keep himself from crossing the line into the dark side—he’d thought of crashing with her as a last resort, but only if it had been a one-hundred-percent safe situation. By a twist of perverse luck, Sloss and Bonny had spotted him on Broadway, heading this way. Desperation had brought him running to Mackenzie’s door, minutes ahead of the pair of henchmen.

Devlin would have rather kept on going, but when he saw her on the street and knew she’d recognize him there was no other option.

If lady luck was shining on him, Sloss and Bonny had believed her when she’d spoken to them at the door and wouldn’t be back.

If not…Mackenzie would need watching. Now that he’d dragged her into this, he’d have to protect her. A complication he didn’t need, even though she sure was a sight for sore eyes. And a deadened heart.

She grimaced, still not trusting him. “You should have come to the reunion instead, and spared yourself the…whatever it is you’re up to.”

“I’m not one of our old high school’s shining success stories.”

“Yeah, well, maybe you should reconsider your career path, huh?”

He wasn’t going to follow that line of discussion. “Make the call, Mackenzie. Then we can get some sleep.”

She stood and moved silently through the living room on unshod feet, picking up a cordless phone from the desk beneath the window. Despite her disheveled state, she was even prettier than he’d remembered. In school, she’d been plump and quiet, something of a wallflower who’d been overshadowed by her active, outgoing sister. The past ten years had been good to her. The baby-fat face had gained more definition, and the womanly figure now suited her. Suited him, too. The feel of her breasts pushing against his chest had been quite the distraction.

Thoughtfully, she touched the phone to her chin as she walked back across the room. “Let me get this straight. You memorized my address from the sheet sent out with the invitation to the reunion. Then you just happened to be on this particular street, needing a hideout…at the very moment that I was coming home from our tenth high-school reunion. And then, instead of saying hello and introducing yourself properly, you attacked me and pushed me inside because you were in a—” she made quotation marks in the air “—hurry.” She plopped down beside him on the couch. “Have I got it right?”

“More or less.”

She shook her head as she dialed. “Just so you don’t think I’m swallowing that baloney.”

He grabbed the phone and hit the hang-up button. “Don’t use 9-1-1. They can trace your call.” He punched in a number. “Here, I dialed the precinct direct. But be brief and hang up fast.”

She hesitated before taking a breath and speaking in the querulous high-pitched voice of an old lady. “I want to report suspicious activity. West 17th in Chelsea, between Sixth and Seventh. Two men. They’re busting into apartment buildings.” She cut the connection. “How was that?”

Devlin smiled, thinking of Sloss and Bonny scrambling for cover when the N.Y.P.D. arrived. The interruption wasn’t more than a wrench in their plans, but even a minor victory was satisfying after the disastrous evening he’d had. Three month’s work was on the verge of collapsing. “You did good.”

Her serious expression lightened. “Shew. Does this make me a gun moll?”

“Only for the night.”

Her cheeks curved with a smile. “This has been one hell of a night.”

“Fun reunion?”

“It wasn’t all that I’d hoped.”

“Why not? Looks like you’ve done well for yourself.”

She adjusted the gap in her blouse, then squared her shoulders and lifted her chin, giving him another glimpse of her new, confident attitude. “Well, yes, as a matter of fact, I have.”

“Still working for the candy company?”

She blinked. “How do you know where I worked? We haven’t seen each other since high school.”

“I keep my ear to the ground. I hear things.” He wasn’t about to tell her that he’d purposely kept track of her when it hadn’t meant anything special. He’d been curious, that’s all. “You went to college and started at Regal right after graduation. I bet you’re a vice president by now.”

“Actually, I’ve moved on. Just recently. I opened my own penny-candy emporium in the Village a couple of weeks ago. It’s called Sweet Something. Several of the city newspapers ran items about the grand opening party. Mostly because my publicist got a few celebrities to come, but even so…”

He grinned, delighted with the wholesome rightness of her fate. By damn, the world hadn’t gone all wrong, not if Mackenzie Bliss owned a candy store. “I remember,” he said. “You always carried butterscotch candies in your backpack. And—” He searched his memory.

“Sugar Babies,” she said. “I had a minor fling with Zowies in eighth grade.”

“Still have all your teeth?” he teased.

She displayed them. “A couple of cavities. One root canal.”

On impulse, he touched the nick at the corner of her mouth. “Sorry about that.”

She pulled away, her lashes lowering as she slid a thumb over her lip. The gesture seemed too girlish for a twenty-eight-year-old woman.

“Do you have a boyfriend?” he asked abruptly.

“I did, but, um, not anymore.” She showed her teeth again, going for a feral female look that didn’t suit her. Not even the new her. “I dumped him.”

“Yeah?”

She frowned. “You don’t believe me?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

A heightened blush betrayed her. “Okay. It was more like a mutual breakup. The relationship died from natural causes, although I was the one who finally pointed it out. And it took me only two years to notice.” Her face changed. “This is dumb. You’re on the run and I’m talking about penny candy and my ex-boyfriend. Give me your jacket. It’s so wet it’s soaking through the couch.”

“This is the only chance we’ll have to catch up,” he said to distract her. It was better if he kept the jacket.

“Our one and only chance,” she said with an edge. “Right. So, you have my story. My parents got remarried, by the way. Almost three months ago. And my sister—remember her?—has moved to Manhattan. She’s working in a Tribeca bistro.”

“Sabrina Bliss,” he said, shaking his head. She was hot sun to Mackenzie’s cool shade. “I thought she’d be surfing in Hawaii or partying on a yacht in the Riviera.”

“Check back in another ten years. She might be.”

“Got a husband?”

“Not Sabrina. At least, not yet.”

“How come you’re not married?” he asked.

Mackenzie shrugged. “No one’s asked me.”

“Not even this guy you just dumped?”

“Well…”

“You turned him down? Why?”

Her gaze darted at his face, but she didn’t answer, only shook her head. She put on a smile, asking softly, “What about you?”

He knew he shouldn’t toy with her, but he couldn’t help it. She’d gotten to him. Not only via his overt reactions to her magnificent breasts and sweet mouth, but in some mysterious, subliminal way, just as she used to in high school. “What about me?” he asked, his voice grating as he turned her innocent question around. “Would you turn me down?”

She caught her breath, taking him too seriously. He had to remember that she was prone to doing that. “I guess my answer depends on your question.”

His laugh was harsh in his throat. “I’m not asking you to marry me, that’s for sure.”

“You’re already married?” she guessed, flicking her lashes at him again.

“Are you kidding?”

“Why not? I’ve read about those jailhouse marriages.” She reached over to unzip his jacket.

“I haven’t spent my entire adult life in prison,” he said out of a senseless need to amend her impression of him. She was supposed to think he was a lowlife criminal. And he wasn’t supposed to care.

She looked disappointed in him. “How are your parents?”

“Still living in Scarsdale.” His father, Ed Brandt, was an uncomplicated medical salesman who stayed on the road even longer than his job required. He was avoiding his wife, Marilyn, who wasn’t a bad person, but very difficult to live with on a daily basis. She suffered from manic depression, and her moods kept the Brandt household in a constant funk. Devlin avoided them now, but he kept track via his older sister, who was married and happy, the closest thing to normal the family had produced. Ed was nearing retirement and Marilyn was on a new drug, so Devlin guessed they were doing as well as could be expected.

“How’s your mother?” Mackenzie’s face showed her concern.

“She’s feeling a little better, thanks.” Devlin cleared his throat, uncomfortable with the subject. He’d been ashamed by his mom as a kid and had never brought friends back to the house. Word had spread about the crazy lady anyway, making him an outcast early on. In Scarsdale, imperfection wasn’t tolerated. “My sister, Deb, looks after her.”

“Do you visit?”

“Not if I can help it.”

Mackenzie gasped. At first he thought she was reacting to his callous disregard for family, but then he realized where she was looking. Her eyes were round. “Devlin.”

Damn—she’d seen the blood. He should have been paying attention instead of worrying about her opinion to his cover story. And now she’d managed to tug the jacket halfway off him, revealing the red patch on his torn shirt.

“You’re hurt.” She reached behind the sofa and clicked on a lamp. Her eyes got even bigger as she goggled. “Is it a gunshot wound?”

“No. It’s nothing.” He pushed her hands away. “Only a scratch.”

“Then let me see…” Within seconds, his shirt was unbuttoned and she was examining his abdomen. It was decorated with bruises and a couple of raw red scrapes that matched the one on his chin. Bonaventure had taken great pleasure in stomping him into the cement floor when the first cursory pat-down hadn’t turned up the missing ruby.

Devlin sucked air between his teeth when Mackenzie prodded at his ribs. “Broken?” she asked.

“Not for lack of trying,” he said.

“You should see a doctor. What if your lung gets punctured?”

“The ribs are only bruised. I’ve had cracked ribs before and believe me, it hurt like hell. This only hurts like heck.”

“That’s hardly an educated diagnosis.”

“Them’s the breaks.”

She shook her head. “Why don’t you take off those wet boots and go clean up in the bathroom. There’s a first-aid kit in the medicine cabinet. I’ll make you something hot to drink and get you an ice pack for that eye. Then I can bandage you up.”

He put out a hand, stopping her from rising. “Can I trust you?”

She seemed about to give him the sarcastic retort he deserved, but then her features softened. “You must think so, Devlin, or you wouldn’t be here.”

She was wrong. He’d been a deep undercover cop for so long that he didn’t trust anyone, even himself.