Читать книгу Bride Of The Bad Boy - Elizabeth Bevarly - Страница 8

Angie Ellison couldn’t believe she was going to do what she was about to do. It was dangerous. It was immoral. It was illegal. It was downright wrong. But it was her only choice if she had any hope in the world of saving her father’s livelihood, perhaps his very life.

She crouched behind a massive crepe myrtle that was still in full flower, scrubbed a finger under her nose to keep in the sneeze that threatened and stared up at Ethan Zorn’s bedroom window. At least, she thought it was his bedroom window. She’d been in the house on only two occasions—first as a second grader on a field trip to what had then been a historic attraction known as the Stately Randall House, and again last week, when she’d been posing as a Junebug Cosmetics representative specifically so she could scope the place out.

On the first occasion, Ethan Zorn hadn’t even been living in Endicott, Indiana, and his shadowy specter hadn’t been a threat to Angie’s family. On the second and much more recent occasion, the illustrious Mr. Zorn—who was now renting out what had become the Stately Randall Guest House once the Randalls had run through the Stately Randall Inheritance—hadn’t been home.

Of course, she’d known he wouldn’t be home when she’d lifted the big brass knocker on the front door. That would have interfered with her plan. Instead, she had opened her phony sample case for his housekeeper, had faked an upset stomach and had fled to the bathroom—where she’d managed to hack out some pretty convincing retching sounds, she recalled with some pride now.

The housekeeper had run to the kitchen for a glass of water and an antacid, and Angie had run upstairs to get a quick look around. And as best as she could remember, the window directly above the crepe myrtle should be the master bedroom. She was pretty sure it was, anyway. At least, she thought it was. In any case, she hoped it was, because that was where she was going in.

A damp blond curl escaped from the black baseball cap she’d crammed backward on her head, and she tried without success to blow back the unmanageable tress that plastered itself to her forehead. She was more than a little uncomfortable in the long-sleeved black T-shirt and jeans, with the heat of an extended summer breathing down her neck.

September in southern Indiana might as well have been July in the Amazon jungle, she thought. The air was oppressive, unruly and hot, and in no way conducive to breaking and entering. But she’d had to wear something to cover up her dark gold hair and ivory skin; otherwise she would have reflected the scant moonlight better than a mirror.

She rose quietly and began to make her way around the circumference of the big brick mansion, her black Reeboks whispering softly on the dry grass, her breathing thready and irregular. Belatedly, she realized there was probably an alarm system that she would have to contend with, then decided that no, people never even bothered to lock their doors in Endicott, because nothing ever happened here. Even big-time crooks like Ethan Zorn probably wouldn’t worry about someone coming in uninvited. Those things just didn’t happen in Endicott.

Not even to mobsters.

So Angie decided her chances were fifty-fifty that she would be successful in her first, and without question last, attempt at tangling simultaneously with the law and the criminal element. All in all, they weren’t bad odds, she decided. They were certainly better than the ones that awaited her if she didn’t succeed in her quest. Because if she couldn’t uncover proof that Ethan Zorn was the low-life scumbag, murdering slug she knew him to be, then her family could lose everything.

As she drew near an open window, she heard the sound of music tumbling from inside—The Brandenburg concerti. Having minored in music, she would have recognized the lush, raucous compositions anywhere. Of course, such studies hadn’t helped Angie further her career in journalism. She was, after all, still working for the Endicott Examiner. And even at that, she still hadn’t won a front-page byline. Not that working the crime beat was so bad. She had wanted to be a crime reporter, after all. She just wished there were some crime in Endicott to report. It would make her job infinitely more interesting.

Not for the first time, she hoped that her escapade tonight, in addition to helping out her family, might result in a really, really good story, too. And then the Examiner’s editor, Marlene, would have to reward Angie’s journalistic integrity and spunk. Maybe the story would even be syndicated, she thought further, fairly drooling over the fantasy. She could already see her name on the front page of the New York Times.

Of course, then mobsters everywhere would know where to find her. She frowned at the realization for a moment, wondering yet again if she was doing the right thing. Then the music ended abruptly, and she had no more time to think. She hurled herself against the cool brick building behind her, flattening herself against the wall, fading into a shadow. She told herself not to panic—Ethan Zorn was still out of town. She knew that, because she’d called her friend Rosemary, who worked as a travel agent—and who owed Angie more favors than she would ever be able to repay—to find out his itinerary. So it must have been the housekeeper who had switched off the concert.

Angie braved a quick dip of her head toward the window, gazed into a room furnished in Early Conspicuous Consumption, and saw that it was indeed the white-haired, mild-mannered Mrs. MacNamara who was fiddling with the stereo dials. And she kept fiddling for a good three minutes until she located the alternative station operated by the local high-school communications class. Only when the boom-boom-boom of Nine Inch Nails slammed against the walls did Mrs. MacNamara move to a chair by the grand piano and pick up her knitting.

It’s that damned comet, Angie thought, shaking her head in wonder. It would be passing directly above Endicott in a week and a half, and everyone always said it made people do things they’d normally never do.

Like break into a house one had no business breaking into, she thought further, dropping to her hands and knees to crawl beneath the open window. Like risk the wrath of a malevolent killer like Ethan Zorn to keep her family safe.

Actually, Angie didn’t know for sure that Ethan Zorn had ever killed anyone. She simply assumed that he had, given his line of work. Mobsters were always killing people, weren’t they? Or at least they were hiring assassins or others of such ilk to do the killing. Until recently, there had never been any mob activity in Endicott. Not until Mr. Zorn had come to town. But now there was all kinds of talk of illegal goings-on. Well, some talk anyway. A little. Angie just wished she could pin down exactly what those illegal goings-on were. She was the crime reporter, after all.

She moved around the perimeter of the house in silence, and when she was satisfied that Mrs. MacNamara was in fact the only person home, Angie made her way back to the area below the alleged master bedroom window. Two stories hadn’t seemed all that high in broad daylight. But now as she squinted into the darkness above her, that window seemed a pretty fair climb.

She filled her lungs with the hot September night and released the breath slowly. There was nothing else for it—she had no choice. Besides, the waterspout was so conveniently located at that corner of the building—and directly beside Ethan Zorn’s bedroom window—that she just couldn’t resist.

Gripping the metal spout firmly with one black leather-gloved hand, Angie dug the toe of her black high-top sneaker into the wide space between the bricks and heaved herself upward. Slowly, steadily, clawing first the bricks and then the drainspout, she made her way up the side of the building, feeling oddly exhilarated, like some nuclear-age superhero in a garishly painted comic book.

It wasn’t until she reached the bedroom window that Angie began to panic. Because she realized then that deep down in her heart, she had been hoping the window would be locked and impassive, so that she could scrap this whole silly plan and go home for a good, long, helpless cry. Unfortunately for her, though, the window was not only unlocked, but open wide to allow in the warm, early-autumn breeze. It was going to be a piece of cake to break into Ethan Zorn’s house.

Dammit.

With one final, heartfelt sigh, she reached for the concrete windowsill and swung her body toward it. For a single, brief moment, she hung there by both hands, berating herself yet again for doing something so incredibly stupid. Then she inhaled a deep breath, pulled herself upward and rolled herself over the sill and into the house.

Ethan Zorn rolled his itty-bitty, outrageously expensive car to a halt in front of his rented house and swore yet again that he would never, ever, not even if his life depended on it, fly standby again. It was too stressful, too unpredictable, too plebeian and too crowded.

Of course, he reminded himself, there had been a time in his life when he’d loved crowds and unpredictability, not to mention acting plebeian. But he’d never much cared for stress. Funny, how over the last decade he’d managed to completely banish from his life the things he had always loved, and nurture the one thing he had always hated. Or maybe it wasn’t so funny after all, he thought further with a frown. Certainly, it hadn’t been fun.

He pushed the troubling thoughts away as he shoved his car door open. Then he unfolded himself from inside, arched his body into a long, lusty stretch on the pavement and reached back toward the passenger seat for his briefcase and garment bag. The two items seemed to be his constant companions these days, and he noted absently that both were starting to show signs of fatigue and wear.

Much the way he was himself, he ruminated almost whimsically. But then, in his line of work, men like him never lasted long.

After kicking the car door closed with his heel, Ethan activated the alarm, wondering why he bothered. His newly adopted headquarters—he hesitated to consider the small town of Endicott, Indiana his home—was a place rife with decency and wholesomeness, more’s the pity. But he was accustomed to watching his back in all areas of his life, and wasn’t about to stop now.

His house keys jangled lightly as he ascended the steps and crossed the wide porch, and as an afterthought, before inserting the key into the lock, Ethan tried the front door. Unlocked. Again. He was going to have to have yet another chat with his housekeeper, Mrs. MacNamara.

Of course, Mrs. Mack had grown up in Endicott, so she couldn’t possibly understand what dangerous elements existed out there in the big, bad world. Endicott was the heart and soul of midwestern America, a place where dreams and wishes actually still had the potential to come true.

It was almost laughable, really, Ethan thought, the naïveté and blissful ignorance of this town. If people had any idea what he was really doing here, they’d pack up their children and pets and run screaming for the safety of the shallow green hills outside town. Fortunately for Ethan, he’d covered his tracks well. But then, that was absolutely essential in his line of work. One misstep, and he could be dead.

The front door creaked comfortably as Ethan opened it, and he was assaulted by the unlikely percussion of hard-rock music. Following it to the sitting room, he saw Mrs. Mack sound asleep in a chair beneath her knitting, and the stereo speakers fairly dancing on the bookshelf with every thumpa-thumpa-thumpa of a bass guitar. He crossed to the receiver and switched it off, and glorious silence descended to awaken the elderly woman.

She blinked at the soft light enveloping her like a shawl and met Ethan’s gaze. “Oh. Mr. Zorn. You’re home early. I wasn’t expecting you back until tomorrow night.”

Ethan swiped a hand wearily over his face and rubbed his forehead hard. “My business concluded earlier than I thought it would, so I went ahead and came back. Everything okay?”

His housekeeper nodded. “As well as can be expected with Bob on the horizon.”

He shook his head. So she had been sucked in by all that comet garbage, too, he mused. That was the only thing about this town that Ethan found disturbing. This comet hysteria that seemed to have been affecting everyone since the day he’d arrived a couple of weeks ago. Comet Bob had been blamed for everything from missing pets to power outages to slow mail delivery. And every time local citizens did something stupid—whether it was speeding right by a traffic cop or getting caught in the act by one’s spouse—they conveniently blamed it on Bob.

“Fine,” Ethan said, dismissing the comet talk before it could begin. Suddenly, he was too tired to berate his housekeeper about the front door, so he ran a big hand wearily through his black hair and told her, “I’ll just turn in, then.”

Mrs. MacNamara nodded again. “Me, too. Ever since Bob was first spotted out there last month, I’ve been completely sapped of energy.”

Of course, Ethan thought, that would have nothing to do with the fact that the woman was nearly eighty years old and had recently taken on the total responsibility for her fourteen-year-old great-grandson, who was, if nothing else, a juvenile delinquent. No way could it be that. It must be Bob who was responsible for her sudden weariness.

“You do that, Mrs. Mack,” he said, keeping his thoughts to himself.

He waited until his housekeeper was out of sight, then shrugged out of his Brioni suit jacket and tossed it over his arm, rolling his shoulders against the pressure of the holster strapped across his back. The big MAC-10 pistol tucked inside had traveled in pieces from Philadelphia in the overstuffed garment bag Ethan had checked for the flight. But the moment he’d collected the bag from the luggage carousel, he had ducked into the nearest men’s room to quickly reassemble it, fastening the gun back in place. He felt far too vulnerable without it.

After loosening his Valentino necktie until it hung unfettered beneath his collar, Ethan hoisted his garment bag over his shoulder, gripped his briefcase more firmly and headed upstairs to his room. As he silently ascended the plushly carpeted steps, he switched his briefcase to his other hand and began unfastening the buttons on his Versace dress shirt, pulling it free of his trousers.

Comfort. That was all he wanted at the moment—comfort and relaxation. He paused outside his bedroom door to toe off his Gucci loafers, and was about to reach into the room to switch on the light, when he heard a strange, soft sound whisper through the darkness on the other side. The squeak of a bedspring, he realized immediately. Someone was in his room, squeaking his bedsprings, no less.

He took a single, silent step backward and lowered his burdens to the floor without a sound. Then he plucked the MAC-10 from his holster and flicked off the safety. The balmy night was suddenly suffocating, and he swiped at a thin sheen of perspiration that dampened his upper lip. Then he stepped toward the bedroom door again, pressed his hand flat against the wall and reached around to flick on the light switch.

As the bulb burst into bright white light overhead, Ethan moved into the doorway with his gun drawn before himself, his legs braced, with feet planted firmly against each side of the doorjamb. He had expected to see any number of people greeting him just as menacingly on the other side.

What he didn’t expect to see was a petite blonde dressed completely in black, standing on tiptoe at the head of his bed with the pillows piled beneath her feet, a position that almost gave her the additional leverage needed to reach the painting of Moby Dick overhead. She spun around at the intrusion of light and promptly lost her footing, falling hard on her fanny at the center of the mattress.

When she saw Ethan’s menacing stance behind the big, black gun, she gasped and slapped both gloved hands over her mouth, as if she were trying to stifle a scream. Her dark eyes widened in terror, but she uttered no further sound. Her body seemed to tremble all over, and her chest rose and fell erratically as she struggled to take in enough breath.

Instinctively, Ethan knew that she had broken into his house for some reason other than harming him physically. What on earth that reason could possibly be, however, had him totally mystified. Although he’d been living in Endicott for two weeks now, he couldn’t recall ever having seen the woman who had invaded his house. Because he definitely would have remembered a woman like that. Not to mention eyes like those.

A brown-eyed blonde, he marveled. He’d always had a major thing for brown-eyed blondes. How very fortunate to find one in his bed now.

When he realized how frightened she was of him, he knew he had the upper hand, and he was helpless to prevent the smile that curled his lips. Tightening his grip on the gun, just to make her even more frightened—and therefore more amenable to answering his questions—Ethan took a few steps into his room, kicked the door closed behind him and reached quickly back to twist the key in the lock. Then he withdrew the key and tossed it carelessly to the other side of the room.

Still cupping her hands tightly over her mouth, the woman watched the slim length of metal arc delicately into the air, and took note of its descent and landing behind the Queen Anne chair in the corner by the fireplace. Her gaze moved from there to the open window opposite the bed, and Ethan could see that she was already weighing her chances with both escape routes, wondering which might provide the best alternative.

Nice try, he thought. He wasn’t about to let her get away that easily. Maybe not at all.

He took a few more steps toward the bed, the slight movement enough to bring the woman’s head whipping back around, her gaze locked on his. She finally dropped her hands from her mouth, but she still seemed unwilling—or unable—to make a sound. And she still didn’t make a move from the bed.

As Ethan drew nearer, he realized she was even smaller than he’d originally estimated, and he wondered what the hell she thought she was doing breaking into the home of a man twice her size and weight. She must love to live dangerously, he decided. So danger was exactly what he would give her.

She remained motionless as he completed his approach, and he had to force himself to stop at the edge of the mattress and not crawl into bed beside her. Instead, he fastened his gaze to the black baseball cap that sat backward on her head, and the spray of loosely curled dark gold hair springing from the opening that normally would have been in the back. Then, as salaciously as he could, he skimmed his gaze downward, meeting her eyes levelly before turning his attention to her mouth, her breasts, her body.

“Well, well, well,” he said softly after completing his inventory. When the woman edged backward to press herself against the headboard, he broadened his smile to bare his teeth, held his gun level and perched on the edge of the mattress. “Who’s been sleeping in my bed?” he wondered aloud. “And, more important than that, why is she still here?”

Hoo, boy, Angie thought with only a vague sense of reality. She was in it now. Deep. As she met the gaze of the big, lethal-looking man who had caught her searching his bedroom—because it was way preferable to staring down the muzzle of the big, lethal-looking gun he had trained between her breasts—she wondered what exactly she was going to do now.

Thinking back, she supposed it might have been a good idea to plan an escape route in case Ethan Zorn discovered her presence in his home. But at the time, being discovered just hadn’t seemed likely. And besides, at the time, she’d been too busy trying to decide what to wear.

Hindsight’s twenty-twenty, she thought now.

She supposed, if she tried really, really hard, she could convince herself that the menacing Mr. Zorn wasn’t planning to shoot her. Otherwise, he probably wouldn’t have locked the door and thrown away the key—it would only hinder him in the speedy disposal of her body. Not to mention the fact that if he had planned to shoot her, he probably would have pulled the trigger by now. So maybe all this business with the gun was just a little something he did to scare people.

As far as Angie was concerned, it worked.

“You’re not going to tie me up, are you?”

The question was out of her mouth before she even realized she was thinking it. She squeezed her eyes shut tight. Idiot, idiot, idiot, she berated herself. Why on earth had she asked him such a thing?

When she opened her eyes again, Ethan Zorn was gazing at her with one eyebrow arched in speculation, as if he would like very much to take her up on her offer.

“Do you want me to tie you up?”

Instead of saying anything else that might make her sound as stupid as she felt, Angie clenched her teeth together hard, to keep her mouth firmly shut. Then she drew in a deep breath and held it, and waited to see what he would do.

“I guess I could scare up some rope from somewhere in the house.” He smiled. “If it means that much to you. Then again,” he added, his smile growing lascivious, “maybe you’d like it better if I used some of my neckties. They’re silk, you know. Much less likely to leave marks.”

Still Angie only continued to stare at him, unable to make a sound.

“Well, maybe some other time,” he said, clearly sorry she hadn’t responded more enthusiastically. He eyed her more intently. “So if you’re not here looking for some cheap thrills—which, incidentally, I’d be happy to provide—then what are you doing in my bedroom?”

Angie didn’t—couldn’t—say anything in response.

“Well?” he asked.

She bit her lip and finally managed to find her voice. It was barely a squeak, granted, but at least she was able to chirp, “Well, what?”

He waggled the gun a little, a silent indication that he thought she should already know what he was talking about.

Angie scrunched up her shoulders and pretended not to understand, hoping for some kind of divine inspiration or medical intervention to offer an opportunity for escape. She was working on a good heart attack as it was. Maybe, if she could just buy herself a few more minutes, it would become a full-fledged coronary arrest, and she’d be saved the messy outcome of a shooting death.

Ethan Zorn eyed her curiously. “I’m waiting for an explanation, Goldilocks.” His voice was low and level and redolent of the blue-collar accent one found so prevalent in the northeastern part of the country. “What are you doing in my house?” he added. “My bed? Your porridge been kind of cold lately? You looking to warm things up a bit?”

For one very brief instant, it occurred to Angie that Ethan Zorn had the most beautiful, bottomless, benevolent brown eyes she’d ever seen. Like Bambi’s mother. Or even Bambi himself. Then she shook the sensation off and reminded herself he was a killer. Well, probably a killer, anyway. And killers didn’t have benevolent Bambi brown eyes.

“Oh, is this your house?” she asked, feigning surprise, still hoping to buy herself some time.

He didn’t look anywhere at all convinced by her phony confusion. “It’s one my employer is renting for me while I have business here, yeah,” he told her.

She glanced quickly around at her surroundings, pretending to see them for the first time, then smacked her palm soundly against her forehead. “Oh, wow, am I embarrassed. I thought this was Bumper Shaugnessy’s house. You know Bumper, of course, don’t you?”

Ethan Zorn continued to study her through narrowed eyes, and didn’t respond at first. Angie kept silent, though, thinking every minute she could stall would bring her one step further away from winding up a tidbit in the Examiner’s obits later in the week.

“Uh, no,” Zorn finally said. “Can’t say as I’ve made Bumper’s acquaintance.”

She pretended to be amazed. “But everyone in Endicott knows Bumper. Ever since that incident with the Indiana Corn Queen at the Madison County Fair. Now, surely you heard about that.”

Again the big man sitting on the bed beside her narrowed his eyes at her. “Um, no, sorry. Missed that one, too.”

Angie waved her hand spiritedly. “Oh, this is a great story. You’re gonna love it. See, what happened was that Boomer was actually dating Dierdre’s twin sister, Daphne—Dierdre being the Indiana Corn Queen, of course—and he didn’t realize—”

“Who are you?”

Angie blinked quickly, and once again found herself pinned to the spot by Ethan Zorn’s espresso gaze. “I’m Angie,” she replied automatically, wondering when she had chosen to speak. “Angie Ellison.”

He shook his head, clearly confused. “Why are you in my house? In the dark? Dressed in black? As if you were trying to …oh, say …rob the place?”

Once more, she shook off the odd sensation that the man sitting beside her—the man holding a gun on her, the man who was a threat to her entire family—was really just a cream puff deep down inside.

“I told you,” she said softly, forcing the words out of a mouth suddenly gone dry. “I thought this was Bumper Shaugnessy’s house.”

Ethan Zorn shook his head. “Uh-uh. No way, sweetheart. I ain’t buyin’ it.”

In one swift, deft move, he pointed the gun toward the ceiling, ejected its clip with a loud ka-thwack, checked it and tucked it back into the grip. Then, when the cacophony of scraping metal fell silent, he trained the ugly weapon on Angie once more.

“Now, then,” he said. “Let’s try this again. Who are you, and what are you doing in my house?”

“I’m Angie,” she repeated. “Angie Elli—”

“I got the name down fine the first time, honey. I just don’t recognize it.” He dropped his gaze briefly to her mouth, then brought it quickly back up to her eyes. “Help me out here, or I’m going to have to resort to doing something I don’t wanna have to do.”

She inhaled a deep breath and scrambled for something that might explain her presence in a halfway plausible fashion. “Um…would you believe I’m…uh…delivering some Junebug cosmetics that your housekeeper ordered last week?”

Ethan Zorn shook his head very slowly. “No, I don’t think I believe that. Try again.”

Angie bit her lip. “Um…would you believe I’m working for ‘Bugs’ Burger’s Extermination—at ‘Bugs,’ we think the only good bug is a dead bug—and have reason to believe that a rare breed of night-crawling cucaracha is infesting your walls?”

Again, that slow shake of his head. “Nope.”

Angie gave it one last shot. “Would you believe, um…that I’ve been admiring you from afar for some time now and just wanted to make your acquaintance?”

That, at least, brought forth a smile from the inimitable Mr. Zorn. Unfortunately, it was a decidedly lascivious smile, and Angie began to think maybe that last attempt at explanation might not have been such a good idea after all.

“Although I think I like the idea of being…admired from afar,” he began, “something tells me that’s just not quite it, either. Three strikes, Goldilocks,” he added, lifting the gun that had begun to droop. “Unless you wanna give it one last shot—no pun intended—and tell me the truth this time, then you’re outta there.”