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“Come on! Come on!”
Still the lock wouldn’t turn the whole way. In a spurt of pure desperation, she tugged off her shoe and whacked the handle with the stacked heel, and then tried again.
The lock gave. Almost sobbing with relief, Lauren threw open the door and charged outside. Two steps later, she collided with a wall of solid muscle.
“What the hell…?”
The gruff voice split the darkness as Lauren rocked back, almost toppling over. Hard hands grabbed her arms, whether to save her from falling or to keep her from running, she had no idea. She flung her head up, gasped at the sight of the lean, shadowed face inches from hers.
“Are you okay?”
“I…I…” Lauren struggled to reply around the lump in her throat.
Those hard fingers stayed locked around her upper arms, but the hold gentled, supporting her while she stammered incoherently.
“Who…? What…?”
“I’m your new neighbor. I was carrying some boxes out to the trash and heard the sound of glass shattering. Did you drop something? Cut yourself?”
Too flustered to correct his mistaken impression that she was Becky, Lauren did manage to gather her scattered wits enough to register two swift impressions. One, his eyes were the bluest she’d ever seen. They reflected the light pouring from the kitchen like blue ice. Two, the hands wrapped around her arms were bare, uncovered by black gloves.
“Someone broke in the front door,” she got out on a shaky breath. “He smashed the glass and reached inside to turn the dead bolt.”
His head shot up. Eyes narrowed, he peered over her head at the house she’d just vacated.
“I left my back door open,” he said tersely. “Go inside, shoot the lock behind you, and wait there until I get back.”
Uncurling his hands, he started forward. Alarmed, Lauren snatched at the sleeve of his blue denim shirt.
“Wait! You can’t go in there alone!”
He eased out of her grip. “It’s okay. I know what I’m doing. Go on over to my place. I’ll let you know when it’s all clear.”
His calm instruction almost convinced her that a little breaking and entering wasn’t anything to get excited about. The wicked-looking automatic he slid out of a holster at the small of his back convinced her otherwise.
With swift efficiency, he ejected the magazine, checked the load and palmed it back in place. Swallowing, Lauren lifted her nervous gaze from the gun to his face.
“Shouldn’t we just go to your place and call the police?”
“My phone’s not hooked up yet.”
He cocked the weapon, pulled back the slide and released it with a snap that ricocheted through the stillness. Then his white teeth flashed in a grin that was pure, rogue male.
“If it makes you feel any better, though, I am the police.”
Chapter 2
Satisfaction sang in Marsh’s veins as he went through the motions of searching Becky Smith’s house. Judging by the target’s stammering incoherence a moment ago, he’d achieved exactly the results he’d hoped for when he’d staged that bit of B and E. Good thing he’d thought to jimmy the lock on the kitchen door. That had given him the few moments he’d needed to rip off the black gloves, toss them into a handy bush and race around to the back of the house in time to intercept the woman who’d come flying out.
Sternly, Marsh repressed the twinge of guilt that tried to wiggle through his sharp satisfaction. Okay, he’d set her up. And yes, he fully intended to play on her stammering fear. If nothing else, the delectable Ms. Smith was guilty of associating with a gambler who was head over his heels in debt to the mob. She was up to her neck also in the dirty business that had led to Ellen’s death. Marsh refused to let her frightened brown eyes deter him from finding his sister-in-law’s killer. Now, if he could just shake the memory of Becky Smith’s trembling body pressed against his, he could concentrate on finessing her into the next phase of his carefully constructed plan.
With a last glance at the mayhem that constituted her living room, he strode down the hall and out the back door. A frown sliced across his face when he spotted her crouched in the shadows of the hedge that separated her rented house from the empty unit next door. That wasn’t part of his plan.
“Didn’t I tell you to go inside my place and lock the door behind you?”
“I thought…” she began, straightening up. “That is, I was worried you might need help.”
“Help?” He threw a disbelieving glance at the garbage can lid she gripped in one hand. “What the hell did you think you could accomplish with that?”
“Well, I was thinking along the lines of bonking the intruder over the head if he came running out. But I probably wouldn’t have had the nerve to do much more than make a racket and scare him off,” she admitted, dropping the lid back on the can.
The fact that she’d been prepared to take a stand at all surprised Marsh. From everything he’d learned about Becky Smith, she’d struck him as more likely to turn tail and run at the first sign of trouble, the way she did after the police interviewed her a few days ago.
“Is he…?” She darted a look at her back door. “Is he gone?”
“He’s gone.” Marsh slid his Glock back into its holster at the small of his back. “He must have wanted in pretty bad, though, to bust the glass like that instead of taking the time to use a cutter or lock pick. Any idea what he was after, Miss Smith?”
She shook her head, her nervous gaze still on her sister’s house.
She didn’t blink at his use of her name, or ask how he knew it. Marsh had an explanation all ready. He’d even been prepared to lecture her on the idiocy of stenciling her last name as well as the house number on the mailbox out front. Since neither the explanation nor the lecture appeared necessary, he dug the hook in a little deeper.
“I thought I heard a car pull up in front a few moments ago. Was that you?”
Distracted, she shoved a hand through her hair. “Yes. I took a cab. From the airport.”
His pulse jumped. The cop in him almost asked her where she’d flown in from. The patient, determined hunter knew better than to press too hard or too fast. Instead, he used the truth to spring his trap of lies.
“Whoever tried to break in must have seen you drive up. Sounds as if he was waiting for you.”
Her head jerked up. “Waiting? For me?”
Marsh steeled himself against the shock that leaped into her eyes. “I’d say it was a distinct possibility.”
Every bit of the color she’d recovered drained from her face.
Ruthlessly, Marsh clamped down on his feeling of guilt. If she insisted on making it with guys who played games with the mob, she’d better be prepared to face a few unpleasantries in life. Curling a hand around her upper arm, he steered her toward her back door.
“I could be wrong. Maybe it was just a kid wanting something to pawn. You’d better take a look and see if anything’s missing.”
Lauren almost told him that she’d already looked, and that she had no idea what, if anything, might be missing. The words stuck in her throat, unable to get past the thick lump of fear and dismay he’d lodged there.
Had someone been waiting for Becky? Was there something more sinister behind her sister’s disjointed message than mere man trouble? Her thoughts tumbled chaotically.
Lauren reentered the house she’d charged out of just moments ago. Once inside, she whirled to face Becky’s neighbor, intending to pour out the details of her sister’s phone call.
“I…”
His narrow, fiercely intent expression killed the impulse on the spot. He looked like a hawk, she thought, in the fleeting instant before he blanked his expression. Or one of those blue-eyed timber wolves who ranged the Rockies. Sharp. Predatory. Dangerous.
“You what?”
“I, uh…”
She tried to shake the ridiculous imagery. He was a cop, for Pete’s sake! A police officer!
Or so he’d said.
Thoroughly disconcerted by her sudden, leaping doubts, Lauren tried to think of a tactful way to ask the man who’d just rushed to her rescue for some form of identification.
She must have looked as confused as she felt at that moment. His narrowed gaze swept over her face.
“Are you all right, Miss Smith?”
Belatedly, she recalled that he still thought she was Becky. With the realization came an instinctive decision to let him continue to think so until she sorted out just what she’d walked into. The mile-wide protective streak the two sisters had always felt for each had now kicked in, big time.
Older than Lauren by a scant ten months, Becky had tried to shield her sister from their parents’ bitter break up with her determined cheerfulness and refusal to cry. On more nights than Lauren wanted to remember, the two girls had huddled together in bed, trying to close their ears to the shouting, the scathing recriminations, the slamming doors. The long summer they’d spent with their mother’s friend, Jane, while their parents waged a bitter war for custody, had cemented the girls’ affection for each other into an indestructible force.
As they’d grown older, their roles had reversed. Solemn, focused Lauren had worked her way though high school and college, while Becky dropped out after her freshman year and flitted from city to city, man to man. Lauren was always there when her sister needed a loan or a place to camp out.
Just as Becky had been there for Lauren after she’d walked in on her husband and their accountant, and then turned around and walked out of her marriage.
Blood ran thicker than a dented heart, and the bond between the sisters ran thicker than blood.
“Yes, I’m all right,” she replied to this watching, watchful neighbor. “Just…nervous, I guess.”
He nodded, the movement a mere dip of his head.
The overhead light caught the glints in his dark hair. He wore it cut short, Lauren noted, neat and trim as a police officer might.
He had the body of a cop, too, or at least the body of one of those heartthrob TV cops. Broad shoulders strained the seams of his blue denim shirt. Sleeves rolled halfway up displayed arms corded with muscle. His jeans rode low on a washboard-flat belly.
As Lauren had learned from her brief, disastrous foray into marriage, however, great pecs and a flat stomach didn’t count for squat when it came to character. Her ex, Jack, had worked out regularly—not that his carefully cultivated physique could compare to this rugged, square-jawed stranger’s.
“Are you up to doing a walk-through?” he asked, those arctic blue eyes filled with seeming concern.
Needing the time to sort through her chaotic thoughts, Lauren nodded and turned to lead the way down the hall.
With her protective instincts now on full alert, she couldn’t miss the sardonic twist to his mouth when she flipped on the lights to the living room. Bristling inwardly on Becky’s behalf, she followed his gaze as it swept the room.
The mess epitomized her sister’s lack of roots and constant job-hopping as much as her casual approach to housekeeping. The furniture had obviously come with the rented house. A blend of desert chic and cheap sturdiness, it consisted of a sofa and two chairs cushioned in shades of mauve and turquoise, one end table and a tacky, cactus-shaped lamp. The collection of orange-striped Garfield cats that crowded the shelf above an adobe fireplace gave the room Becky’s distinctive stamp.
More than anything else, the grinning cats spoke to the differences between the sisters. Lauren specialized in fine works of art and mythical creatures like unicorns and dragons and griffins. Becky collected Garfields. And frothy underwear…like the lavender silk teddy trimmed in black lace draped over the arm of the chair.
It was just the type of thing Becky loved to wear, skimpy up top and even skimpier below. Becky had tried to talk her more conservative younger sister into the same thong-style undergarments a number of times, but Lauren had never mastered the art of sitting down in the darned things without squirming.
She might have guessed that the man beside her wouldn’t miss the provocative teddy. His glance zinged from the lavender silk to Lauren.
“At least we know the intruder wasn’t some pervert after your underwear,” he said, with just the hint of a drawl. “He wouldn’t have left that little number behind. Assuming he could find it in this mess.”
The half joke, half barb brought her chin up. She might complain about the untidiness every time she came to visit, but only a sister could claim that prerogative.
Her smile turned saccharine sweet. Slanting her best Becky glance from under her lashes, she purred out a sharp little jab of her own.
“Do you have a problem with the decorating scheme, big guy? Or maybe you’re wondering how that teddy got left in the living room?”
That grabbed his attention. Startled, he stared down at her. For a moment Lauren had the satisfaction of knowing she’d scored a point. Exactly what that point was, or why she’d suddenly felt the need to score one, she had no idea.
“No problem,” he replied, flashing another heart-stopping grin, even more potent than the one he’d laid on her in the backyard. “With either the decor or where you shed your clothes.”
Lauren was still trying to recover from that dazzling combination of white teeth, tanned skin and uncensored male when he hooked a thumb toward the bedroom.
“Why don’t we finish going through the house?”
Marsh’s grin faded the moment she turned away. His jaw tightened as he gave himself a swift, silent mental kick in the butt. Her sugar-coated smile and playful little jibe had caught him completely off guard. They’d also started him thinking about things he shouldn’t be thinking about…such as just when and how Becky Smith had shimmied out of that teddy.
He’d damn well better control his reactions around this bit of fluff. He couldn’t let her throw him with those kittenish glances or melting brown eyes. There was too much riding on the next few hours for Marsh to blow everything now.
What he couldn’t seem to control, however, was his imagination, which threatened to take off with each seductive sway of Becky Smith’s hips. She moved like the strawberry roan filly that had grown into her legs the summer Marsh turned fifteen. Her stride was all smooth, swaying magic. And her backside…
He reined in that thought, fast. It stood to reason that she’d look as good from behind as she did from the front. She’d seduced Jannisek with one swish of her short, ruffled cocktail skirt, or so her various coworkers at the Desert Nights Lounge maintained. According to them, the hotel owner had fallen fast and he’d fallen hard.
Fast enough to make his employees smirk when they described it.
Hard enough to shell out two thousand dollars for the diamond pin his girlfriend sported on her lapel.
She was wearing Jannisek’s brand, Marsh reminded himself grimly. The man had staked a claim to her. And he’d come looking for her when she didn’t return to wherever he waited for her.
Marsh was counting on it. He sure as hell would come after her. If Marsh had claimed this woman and put his own mark on her, she couldn’t run fast enough or far enough to escape him.
Unless he let her go.
He tensed, anticipating the little jab of pain that always came with the reminder of how he’d let Jenna go. His shoulders went stiff, the way they did whenever he thought of his former fiancée. As if it had a will of its own, his mind reached back to those weeks he’d hovered between life and death. To the agony that came with each breath pulled into his bullet-riddled lung. To the woman who’d fallen apart every time she came to visit him in intensive care.
If he let himself, Marsh knew he could summon in precise detail Jenna’s tear-streaked face. Still hear her sobs as she told him she couldn’t marry a cop, couldn’t worry whether she’d see her husband again every time he left for work.
Deliberately, Marsh slammed the door on the memories. Four years had passed since Jenna had walked out of the hospital, three and a half since Marsh had fully recovered. She’d married a nice, safe junior-high science teacher. Life went on….
Except for Ellen.
The grim reminder of his murdered sister-in-law brought Marsh’s thoughts crashing back to the disaster zone Becky Smith called a bedroom.
This time, he didn’t react with so much as a blink to the chaos. He’d seen the bedroom before, for one thing. For another, he was more interested in Becky than her lack of anything resembling order in her home. Face impassive, he waited while she made a quick survey of the room’s contents.
“I don’t think anything’s missing.”
Moving with seeming nonchalance, Marsh lifted a gold bracelet from the dressing table. Another Garfield dangled from the center link, this one made of gold and crystal.
“A thief wouldn’t have passed up this piece. It looks expensive.”
