Illegal Possession (14 page)

Dallas, who’d just closed the door to his office, rather pointedly locked it before crossing the room to join her on the comfortable couch along one wall. “Don’t you dare,” he said firmly.

“It isn’t five o’clock yet,” she protested weakly a moment later.

“So?”

“I thought we were going to be businesslike during the day.”

“Best-laid plans…”

“Dallas? Darling, the gossip columns are having a field day with us now; d’you want your staff to join the throng in speculation?”

“They already have.” He was busily exploring her throat.

“They have? Uh…what’re they doing?”

“Betting. I’m not supposed to know about it, you understand, but there’s a rather large bet on the date of the wedding.”

Troy was going to ask him what the odds-on favorite was, but somehow or other she forgot about it….

Not content just to sit in his office, Dallas was usually right in the thick of things. He spent time in the labs, consulting with his engineers and technicians, going over design specifications and the like. And he didn’t think twice about rolling up his sleeves and working beside his people.

Troy spent a large amount of her time at his office just watching him. She saw that his staff respected both his business acumen and his knowledge of electronics and that they liked him. And she saw further evidence of what she already knew—that he was a fair and just man, hearing all sides of a disagreement before making a decision.

During these times, Troy finally worked through her own decision. She’d thought long and hard, not only because the decision had to be made but because she wanted to understand her reasons for making the choice she did. The most important reason, of course, was that she loved Dallas. And she’d finally realized that there was nothing so important in her life that it could overshadow her love for him.

She thought about what he’d said about her nocturnal outings, weighing each word with care. The selfless motives he’d attributed to her work were, she knew, not entirely accurate. Searching herself ruthlessly, she knew that while she had a genuine desire to help people, she’d also derived an enormous satisfaction from pitting her wits and her strength against the odds.

And yet…Troy knew that Dallas was right in saying that she’d never meant to go on doing that work forever. Life depended on change: she knew that as well as anyone. And as long as she was being truthful in her inner searching, she admitted to herself that she no longer felt a sense of eagerness when confronted by a job. Perhaps the years brought caution; perhaps the dangers that had sharpened her wits once now gave her pause. She still believed that it was a necessary kind of work, but she began to wonder if there could be an easier way to accomplish it.

In the meantime she stayed with Dallas in his home and reveled in learning the joys of loving and being loved. She discovered how delightful it was to be awakened with kisses, to share a tubful of bubbles, to have a warm and loving man to cuddle up to at night. She grew to understand that she felt more of a woman with Dallas beside her.

There was always a laugh on the tip of her tongue, and never enough time for all the things she wanted to tell him. And the thought of living without him was something she could no longer conceive of.

They spent the weekend together alone, just talking and sharing their ideas. When Dallas tentatively mentioned that he’d often thought of incorporating the development of security systems into his company, Troy decided abruptly that she was being an absolute idiot with all her hesitating.

“I’ve been thinking,” she murmured, lying comfortably beside him on big pillows in front of the fireplace, “about security systems too.”

“And?”

“Well, the police are always stressing prevention, right?”

“Right.” He was idly playing with her fingers and watching her thoughtful face.

“So I was thinking,” she mused, “that maybe I should concentrate on that part of the problem. Prevention, I mean. It wouldn’t solve the problem, but it’d go a long way toward helping, don’t you think?”

Suddenly very still, Dallas said carefully, “I think it would. But then…I’m biased.”

“You certainly are.” Troy looked at him gravely. “You gave me a lot of very nice motives for having become a cat burglar, and I’d like to think you were at least partly right. But you didn’t mention some of the selfish reasons.”

He smiled a little. “You mean the excitement, the adventure of it?”

She nodded. “That was a very large part of it, Dallas.”

“Was?”

“I—don’t need that anymore. The five years were thoroughly enjoyable, and I wouldn’t change them if I could. But you were right; those years are over. You asked me if—if there’d be time for us, and I know now that nothing is more important than making sure of that.”

“Troy…” He held her hand tightly.

“Marry me?”

Her free hand lifted to touch his cheek. “Are you kidding?” she said shakily. “I’d be an idiot to pass up the deal you’re offering, darling. And even though I’ve acted like an idiot, I’m not one. I love you, more and more each day. I want to share the rest of my life with you.”

Dallas released her hand only to sweep her into his arms, a rumbling groan of relief and happiness escaping. “Thank God. Oh, sweetheart, I was so afraid…. I knew how important your work was to you—”

“Not as important as you,” she murmured huskily. “Not as important as us. I love you, Dallas. I think I loved you from that very first meeting. Why else would I have trusted you with the painting?”

He laughed unsteadily. “And you’ve been a thorn in my flesh since that night; more, you’ve been a maddening, impossible disease in my blood.”

Troy giggled suddenly. “That sounds terrible.”

“It was terrible,” he whispered, his lips trailing fire down her throat. “And wonderful…and unforgettable….”

“Mmm…darling?”

“Sweetheart?”

“How would you like a business partner?” she mused, barely able to keep her mind on her own words.

Dallas rose to his feet, pulling her up as well. “Why not?” He grinned at her. “You already own stock in the company.”

“I didn’t tell you that!”

“No, you little witch; you didn’t. I had to read it in one of those gossip columns.”

“Uh…sorry about that, darling.”

“You should be. It was a terrible shock.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

He frowned down at her severely. “No? How would it look in a stockholders’ report that a former cat burglar owned stock in the company?”

“You’ll have a version of the same problem,” she pointed out, “if it ever becomes known that your
wife
is a former cat burglar.”

Dallas showed her an exaggerated wince. “I’ll be a nervous wreck for seven years.”

“Seven years?”

“The statute of limitations, remember?”

Troy looked thoughtful. “I’d forgotten that. I suppose I should really do the decent thing and stay out of your life for seven—” She broke off abruptly as she found herself tossed over his shoulder and swatted punishingly on the fanny.

“On the other hand,” she murmured in a laugh-filled voice, “who wants to do the decent thing?”

Dallas started purposefully for the stairs. “My sentiments exactly, sweetheart; nobility bores me.”

“Which house will we live in?” she asked idly quite some time later as they lay in a lamplit bedroom. “It makes no sense to keep them both.”

“I’ll leave it up to you,” Dallas said over a huge yawn.

“That’s not fair; you’ll have to live there too!”

“She’s being demanding already,” he told the celling ruefully.

“Dallas…”

“We’ll flip a coin.” When she punched him weakly in the ribs, he relented and said more seriously, “I thought you’d probably want to keep your house, since it belonged to your parents.”

“Not really. They loved the place, but didn’t really spend much time there.”

“Mmm. Well, there’s no hurry about deciding, is there?”

“No. But I should warn you that Bryce has been with the family all my life.”

“I’ve always wanted a classy English butler. What about Jamie?”

“Jamie,” Troy said dryly, “has informed me that he’s going to Ireland to spend some time with his family, after which he proposes to take a cruise around the world.”

“Tactful, isn’t he?”

“Yes. But, Dallas—I’d like to ask him to live with us when he eventually comes back.”

“’Sfine with me. Between the two of us, we might even be able to keep you out of trouble.”

“I resent that.”

“I thought you would.”

A sudden thought occurred to Troy. “I wonder how Bryce and Mrs. Bradley will get along?”

“Fine. Unless he tries to get her drunk.”

Troy was still giggling when Dallas turned out the lamp on the nightstand and pulled her even closer to his side.

TEN

“I
REALIZE
,” D
ALLAS
said carefully, “that no one at the party could have entertained their suspicions for more than a few fleeting seconds. You understand that I realize that, don’t you?”

Troy, sitting cross-legged on their bed, a scantily dressed Buddha in an overlarge football jersey, nodded solemnly as she watched her husband pacing energetically back and forth in front of her. “I understand that you realize that,” she confirmed sedately.

Dallas kept pacing. “I mean, just because several of your onetime victims were there is no reason for me to become unduly alarmed, right?”

“Right.”

“After all, who in his right mind could believe for one moment that Troy Bennett Cameron could be—or had ever been—a thief? She’s a wealthy woman in her own right, married to a wealthy husband, a partner in a very successful company. She’s beautiful, very brilliant, and very much a lady. And, to top it all, she’s extremely philanthropic. Who’d ever think she could
possibly
have been a thief?”

“Who’d ever think?” Troy parroted faithfully.

“So I realize that if anyone
did
entertain those ridiculous suspicions, it could only have been briefly.”

“Uh-huh.”

“But I do think, sweetheart,” he said, “that for you to appear at a masquerade ball wearing the outfit and tools of a cat burglar was pushing things. Just a bit.”

“At the time,” Troy murmured apologetically,

“it seemed the thing to do.”

“And then,” Dallas went on conversationally, still pacing, “to lightheartedly demonstrate just how easy it is to pick a lock, open a safe, and bypass a security system—”

“Tommy’s punch. It makes me reckless.”

“—seemed to me to be an act far beneath your normal standards of intelligence.”

“That’ll teach you to work late,” she said with obscure satisfaction.

Dallas stopped pacing and, hands on hips, stared down at his erring wife with heroic patience. “It certainly will; I’ll never again
meet
you at a party rather than
accompany
you from home. And what, may I ask, happened to Joan of Arc?”

“The armor was awkward,” she explained.

“So you decided to go as Troy Bennett, cat burglar par excellence?”

“Madness, I know,” she said sadly.

“That’s your excuse?”

“Well, there was the thought that it might help drum up business.”

“For the police?”

She ignored that splendidly. “And it worked too. Cy Kincaid wants to talk to us Monday about a security system for his home.”

“Is this the same Cy Kincaid,” Dallas asked politely, “you relieved of one rather priceless golden figurine a year before you met me?”

“That’s him,” Troy confirmed sunnily.

Dallas made a muffled sound indicative of despair.

“You did say for better or worse,” she reminded gently.

“But not for insanity.”

“Sorry.”

“And I thought you refused to install security for these art-at-any-price types.”

“Kincaid’s reformed.”

He stared at her suspiciously. “How do you know?”

“A little bird told me.”

“Troy…”

“Interpol; they’ve been watching him ever since. And besides, Dallas, when we install his system, I’ll go into my spiel about how no system is foolproof, and about how there’s an information network among thieves. And assure him very seriously that the most vulnerable victim of theft in the world is one who can’t yell about his loss to the police.”

Dallas addressed the ceiling plaintively. “She just keeps stoking the fire beneath us….”

Wifelike, Troy ignored that. “A little extra preventive medicine can’t hurt.”

“Take your own advice,” he suggested ruefully.

“Are you nervous, darling?”

“The possibility of losing my adored wife to our justice system affects me like that,” he explained.

“Cat burglars are almost never caught; did you know that? Robbers, yes, but not cat burglars. We’re a special breed.”

“With special immunity?”

“You’re being paranoid, darling. We’ve been married a year, and nobody’s found out yet, have they?”

“Until tonight you maintained a certain—discretion, shall we say?”

“I said I was sorry.”

He sat down on the bed and put his head in his hands.

Troy swallowed a giggle. “You have to admit that it’s been an exciting year.”

“Oh…certainly,” he murmured, lifting his head and looking at her with an expression somewhere between mildly bemused and totally petrified. “It certainly has. D’you realize that a year and some-odd weeks ago, I led a perfectly lawful existence?”

“And now you’re married to a former cat burglar,” she sympathized. “How the mighty are fallen.”

“Don’t rub it in.”

Politely she asked, “D’you want a divorce? You seem to be leading up to that.”

“No, I’m merely leading up to a request.”

“Really? What is it?”

“Let’s avoid masquerades from now on, all right?”

“Of course, darling.”

“And ex-victims.”

“If you insist.”

“And while you’re being so generous,” he went on in the same calm tone, “could you answer one small question?”

“Which is?”

“Is the fact that my sister had—business—in every city of Tom Elliot’s twelve-city concert tour a coincidence?”

“I plead the Fifth Amendment,” Troy said immediately.

Dallas lounged back on an elbow and stared at her impenetrable expression. “Sweetheart?”

“Uh-huh?” she said warily.

“Have you been matchmaking behind my back?”

Troy leaned forward suddenly and kissed him, her fingers toying with the towel knotted at his hip. “Have you been seduced lately?” she murmured provocatively.

Temporarily distracted, he mused, “There
was
a crazy lady in my shower this morning.”

“Mmm…blow in my ear, and I’ll follow you anywhere,” she promised huskily, forgetting all about distractions and concentrating only on the marvelous feelings that were always new and exciting.

He didn’t exactly blow in her ear, but she followed him anyway to a place outside themselves, a place they both treasured.

A long time later Dallas stirred slightly and tightened his arm around Troy. “You didn’t answer my question,” he noted with a yawn.

Her voice was muffled against his neck. “What question?”

“Have you been matchmaking behind my back?”

“I never do anything behind your back.”

“Troy.”

“I introduced them. Sue me. Can I help it if they happen to like each other?”

“It sounds,” Dallas said, “more like she’s chasing him to me.”

“That’s a nice brotherly remark.”

“I know my sister. When she wants something, she puts on the gloves and steps into the ring.”

“
Jumps
into the ring.”

“She is chasing him?”

“Well, if you must know, we worked out a campaign.”

“Oh, great.”

“I warned her that Tommy’s a slippery customer, but that just seemed to feed the fire.”

“How would you know he’s a slippery customer?”

“After ten years of friendship I’ve seen a lot of girls come and go.”

“This is not something a brother needs to hear.”

“Don’t worry; Andy’s got him.”

“Is that definite?” Dallas asked politely. “I mean, will she wave a diamond in my face the next time she breezes in?”

“The engagement ring’ll be a sapphire,” Troy said knowledgeably. “Tommy’ll want to match her eyes. But the wedding band will probably be beside it.”

“Already?” Dallas said, startled.

“I introduced them three months ago; they’re cautious compared to us, darling.”

“They’ll elope?”

“I wouldn’t doubt it. Otherwise Tommy’s press agent will probably try to turn it into a circus.”

“Has the press agent met Andy?”

“Not yet.”

“He doesn’t know that he’s about to meet his match, then?”

“Nope. It should be fun to watch.”

“Only from a concrete bunker.”

Troy giggled suddenly. “Speaking of which, did you notice Bryce’s shell-shocked expression when we got home?”

“I thought it was my imagination.”

“No. While you were taking a shower, I cornered Mrs. Bradley in the kitchen and asked what was going on.”

“And?”

“She’s trapped him.”

“What?”

“Her words—not mine.”

“You mean…?”

“Uh-huh. They—or rather
she
—is planning a civil ceremony, and we’re invited.”

Bemused, Dallas said, “You told me Bryce had never married.”

“True.”

“And Mrs. Bradley’s divorced two husbands?”

“Yes.”

“Who got who drunk?” Dallas wanted to know.

“I think it was a joint effort.”

“Bryce may sneak in tonight and murder us.”

“No.” Troy choked on a laugh. “He won’t have the energy.”

Dallas sighed. “What
is
this—an epidemic of matrimony?”

“Nice, isn’t it?”

“Mmm. Sweetheart?”

“Yes, darling?”

“Have I told you today how much I love you?”

“No; we were rushed this morning, and you were too mad at me at the party,” she said judiciously.

“My excuses?” he asked in amusement.

“Well, I told you today. During lunch in your office. But then you got distracted….”

“That couch comes in handy sometimes,” he murmured.

“So you haven’t told me today,” she reminded reprovingly.

He pulled her easily over on top of him, smiling up at her in the lamplight. “I love you, lady cat burglar. And one day I’ll tell our grandchildren that the only thing you ever stole for yourself was my heart.”

“And I’ll tell them,” she whispered adoringly,

“that scrupulously legal Dallas Cameron is the only thief who ever beat me at my own game….”