Private Dancer (5 page)

Moments later she sat on the arm of the sofa, bending over him to clean the encrusted blood from his temple. His aviator sunglasses were in the way, and as she carefully removed them, she had the oddest sense that she was invading his privacy. Fortunately he accepted her ministrations without comment. His eyes closed while she worked gently with the damp washcloth. To her relief, his head wound turned out to be nothing more than a small laceration.

Once she had the cut cleaned and bandaged, she smoothed the washcloth over his forehead. He felt warmer than normal, but her thoughts wouldn’t focus on his temperature. Instead, they dwelled on the unrelieved bones of his face, the faint lines that spidered out from his eyes and the jagged scar. He had the face of a man who lived on the brink of risk and ruination, she decided. Perhaps even a man who had ventured so deeply into the heart of darkness that he hadn’t quite made it back.

As she tried to smooth the cloth over his cheekbones and down toward his jaw, he caught her hand and turned his head to face her, his eyes opening slowly. “What are you doing?”

His eyes gave her a shock. It was the first time she’d seen them, and they were a pale shade of blue. Powder blue, she decided. It was an inconceivable color for a man like him. She couldn’t decide whether she liked the effect or not. Then she was startled even more by the flicker of apprehension in their depths. Apprehensive? Him? The man who hung out in honkytonks, probably drank his beer straight from the can and crushed the empties against his head? He was primal and raunchy enough for ten men! And yet she felt an unaccountable welling of tenderness for him. The tough guy with baby-blue eyes, she thought, smiling to herself. Lord, she hoped the emotion didn’t show.

His voice turned harsh. “I asked what you were doing.”

“You’re feverish,” she told him. “I thought the cold cloth might feel good.”

“I don’t need a nurse,” he said abruptly, waving her hand away. “I need a drink. And make it booze.”

What a crude, insufferably rude
—she bit back the angry retort on her lips. She couldn’t afford to alienate him now. She had a whole battery of questions to ask, and she wanted him receptive, the ingrate.

“Did it ever occur to you to ask rather than order?” she said quietly, rising to get him the drink. She had every intention of making it a stiff one. Maybe alcohol would loosen his tongue.

She crossed the room to the mahogany sideboard that had been a wedding gift from her ex—in-laws, poured several splashes of brandy into a snifter, returned, and plunked it down in front of him on the coffee table. She then took the wing chair across from him, smiling as she sat down. “Need a coaster?” she inquired, casually opening the drawer of the table next to her chair.

“A what?” he said, grimacing. “No, forget it.”

She settled back in the chair. “You’re welcome.”

He took a long swallow of the brandy, shuddered, hit his chest, and took another. “Good stuff,” he said, looking up.

Since it was probably the closest thing she would ever get to a compliment from him, Bev nodded graciously. Either the man had been raised by wolves, or he went out of his way to be obnoxious. Something told her it was the latter, especially as she watched him toss back the rest of the brandy. For one thing, he knew how to hold a snifter.

His comment about the brandy sank in. It ought to be good stuff, she thought. It was one of the gifts she’d given her ex-husband, Paul, in the last months of their five-year marriage. Her reaction to her husband’s pulling away from her had been to compensate with lavish amounts of attention and needlessly expensive gifts. It wasn’t her style at all, but she was desperate to make up for the things she couldn’t give him, the things he really wanted. The thought of another failure had been unendurable at that point in her life, and losing Paul had been the ultimate failure.

You’re on thin ice, Bev
, she told herself. She quickly pushed the memories of her marriage away, knowing she was on dangerous ground. The real reason she and Paul had split up was far too painful to draw out and examine now. Besides, she had more immediate things to concentrate on, such as taking advantage of her guest’s weakened condition.

“You went to a lot of trouble to find me,” she said. “Mind telling me how you did it?”

He shrugged and dark hair fell forward, almost tumbling into his eyes. “No trouble at all,” he answered, sweeping the hair back. “I had a hunch you were giving me the slip yesterday, so I checked out your license plate number as you were pulling away from the bar.”

“And my address? How did you get that?”

“Friends at the DMV.”

She asked the next question without missing a beat. “Why were you so eager to find me?”

“You don’t know?”

“You just couldn’t get enough of me?” She smiled, and then almost wished she hadn’t said the words as his baby blues drifted to more intimate areas of her anatomy, including her breasts, which were already overly responsive to his displays of interest.

“Not nearly enough,” he said. “Care to remedy that?”

“Maybe ... when I get some honest answers.”

His eyes flashed with the same dark impulses she’d seen when she was pinned beneath him in the stairway landing. Sexual bargaining seemed the only ploy that worked with him, and the awareness sent a strange thrill of excitement through her. Of course, she couldn’t consider such a thing again. She’d already had two narrow escapes. It would be utterly crazy ... and yet she couldn’t deny that there was something about him that made her want to take risks. What was it? His moody, gimme-what-I-want-baby good looks? The air of reckless sensuality?

Fortunately, he took the decision out of her hands.

“Rules of the game,” he said as he set the snifter down. “The first is don’t make promises you don’t intend to keep. Sooner or later some tough customer is going to call your bluff.”

“But not a nice guy like you.”

He grinned, dug a toothpick out of his jacket pocket, and popped it into his mouth. “Right,” he answered lazily, letting the toothpick roll to the corner of his lips. “I’m a regular prince.”

“Then how about answering my questions, your highness. Like who are you? I mean, who are you really?”

He shook his head slowly. “Rule number two—don’t ask questions you don’t want answers to.”

“But I
do
want answers.”

“No, you don’t.”

Bev swallowed a sigh of frustration. He was as impossible to pin down as a flickering shadow. She tapped her fingers on the table as it gradually dawned on her that she did have a bargaining tool other than her body. A very potent bargaining tool. She slipped her hand into the table’s open drawer and pulled out the .45 automatic handgun she kept there. “Oh, yes, I do,” she said.

A grimace of disbelief crept into his expression as he stared at her, and the toothpick nearly fell out of his mouth.

Bev quelled a nervous smile. The gun was a model designed to look real even at close range. Her father, who didn’t believe in carrying weapons, had given it to her and lectured her thoroughly on its use. He’d warned her it was a good way to get shot if used recklessly, so she doubted he’d approve of her tactics now. But she just couldn’t resist turning the tables on Mr. Tough Customer.

“So tell me,” she continued, her heart pounding, “who are you anyway? When you’re not being a prince.”

Bev watched him, trying to predict what he might do next as he pulled the toothpick from his mouth and scrutinized her. She’d thought he might be amused by it all, but he didn’t look the least bit amused. His eyes had gone from baby blue to the color of ice, and his darkening mood was all too obvious. He looked as though a hailstorm of biblical proportions was gathering directly above his head. But surely he wouldn’t be foolish enough to rush a woman with a gun.

Bev had no idea how much he
wanted
to rush her. He’d already imagined the pleasure of wrestling the gun out of her hand in graphic detail—and then he’d rejected the idea. She obviously wanted some information, and so did he. Maybe they could do some trading. “What do you want to know?” he asked, noting her sigh of relief.

The gun dipped in her hand, and he fought back the desire to take it away from her, just on principle. Physically it would have been a cakewalk. She was no match for a man his size, but she had her act together, he had to admit that. She’d faked him out twice in twenty-four hours, and he couldn’t remember the last time that had happened.

Maybe it was those lace collars she wore, or the wistful, worried, who-am-I expression he’d noticed once or twice in her dove-gray eyes. He’d been distracted by women before, plenty of times, but the reason had always been sex. With her, it was sex too, and then more. She had the damnedest way of making him feel as though he ought to be nice to her.

“Who are you?” she asked tentatively, as though she’d been trying to analyze his contemplative mood. “I mean, who are you really?”

He popped the toothpick in his mouth again and sat back, draping an arm across the back of the couch. “Name’s Sam Nichols.”

A frown formed. “You’ve got twenty IDs in your wallet,” she said, rubbing the gun barrel absently against her thigh. “Not one of them said Sam Nichols.”

He decided to make it easy for her. “That’s because it’s my real name.”

“Why all the IDs?”

He grinned, knowing she wouldn’t believe him. “I’m a collector.”

“A collector? Of business cards? My, what an absorbing hobby.” She stood up and strolled across the room, watching him thoughtfully, and swinging the gun as though she’d forgotten all about it. In fact, she was making him damn nervous the way she was handling that weapon.

“So ... what is it you want with me, Sam?” The gun barrel ticked back and forth like a metronome, and then, as though she’d just remembered it, she began to tap her chin with it, slowly, almost sensually. “My business card?” She cocked her head in a sexy way.

He rolled the toothpick around in his mouth and crunched down on it. Oh, now he really did want to wrestle her to the ground. Hell, she was as unpredictable as a broken compass needle. She was straightlaced one minute, wistful and curious the next—and then there was this sex-bunny-with-a-gun thing.

“I said, what do you want with me, Sam?”

She was rubbing the barrel against her cheek now, almost as though she were about to kiss the damn thing! She hadn’t forgotten the gun, she was flaunting it! She’d had a little taste of power and she liked it. That was dangerous when a woman had a .45 in her hand, and if she got any cockier, he was going to take it the hell away from her. He snapped the toothpick between his teeth to keep from smiling. She was kind of cute when she got all fired up.

“Am I going to get an answer? Sam?”

“I was hired to tail you.”

“What?”

Sam scores
, he thought. Finally. “I’m a private dick—uh, you know, detective. And you’re my subject.”

She’d been approaching the coffee table as they talked, and it was a good thing there was a chair behind her, or she would have ended up on the floor. “You’re kidding me?” she said, sinking into the wing chair.

“Never been more serious. I had Nate Greenaway’s office staked out this morning when you walked in.”

“Staked out?”

“His wife, Elayne, hired me.”

“Mrs. Greenaway hired a private detective?”

He nodded, and she began laughing softly. “This is unbelievable,” she said, once more oblivious to the weapon she was waving as she talked. “I’m working for
Mr
. Greenaway. He hired me to check up on his wife because he thought she was cheating.”

“Could you watch where you’re pointing that thing?”

“Oh, sure,” she said, dropping the gun onto the table. “You know, it’s all starting to make sense now. I took you for Mrs. Greenaway’s boyfriend, and that’s why I followed you to the bar. You must have thought I was crazy.”

“It crossed my mind.” Several times, he thought, like a ping-pong ball in tournament play.

She leaned forward, elbows on her knees, gazing at him as though she were looking for tangible proof of what he’d just told her. “Amazing,” she said, “I never would have figured you for a private eye.”

“Yeah, me too,” he said. “I mean, you had me fooled.”

She
was
kind of cute, he decided. Her wardrobe left a lot to be desired, and he would never understand why a grown woman wanted to strangle such sexy hair in a band. But she was flushed and excited about something. In fact, she was damn near beautiful at the moment, just like yesterday in the bar.

“Did you think I was Mr. Greenaway’s lover?” she asked.

“No, but I was curious what you were doing there. It seemed coincidental, so I decided to check it out.”

“Oh.” Bev was a little disappointed in his answer. She would like to have been thought of as someone’s paramour. And she rather liked the idea that he might have been following her simply because he’d been so totally fascinated with her. Well, at least he’d taken down her license plate number.

“Would you like something cold to drink?” she asked, aware that her throat was exceedingly dry. Nerves, she imagined. A great deal of excitement had been packed into the last two days.

“Sure, got a beer?”

“Iced tea?”

Sam hated iced tea, but he gave her a quick nod just for the opportunity of watching her walk to the kitchen.

As soon as she’d left the room, he picked up the revolver and smiled. Score another point for her, he thought. She
was
good. He set down the bogus weapon and did a quick visual search of the area.

There was no sign of a man in residence, but there were plenty of signs to confirm his first impression of her. The spotless house, the needlepoint and lace doilies put her squarely in the “nice” category. She might have a few quirks—who didn’t—but she was a missionary at heart. He’d had enough experience with the type to spot one. Nice women went feverish at the sight of a backslider like him, only it wasn’t sex they wanted. It was reformation. They wanted to get him shaving regularly, combing his hair, and updating his wardrobe. They weren’t hot for making babies, they were hot for table manners and good grooming.