Summer Kisses (265 page)

After making the necessary arrangements, Max adjusted the semi-hard ridge pressing against his fly and gathered the rest of his clothes. He shrugged into his shirt and jacket. With only a cursory look around, he couldn’t find the bowtie or one of his socks. He grabbed the stupid vest and stuffed into his pocket.

A filmy stocking curled like a gossamer ribbon around one of his shoes. He picked up the intimate item and stroked the silky texture through his fingers. On a whim, he pocketed the personal memento, too.

Sliding his feet into his shoes, he eyed the front door. In the interest of time, he considered the advantages of taking off without a word, but that seemed too low, even for him.

Besides, this was Annabel. She deserved better. He knew if he left her now in such a position and without explanation, he’d never see her again. Of course, it was possible he’d never see her again anyway, even if he did try to explain. That thought sent him rushing back to her.

In the kitchen, he found her rinsing dishes in the sink. The yardstick rigidity of her spine told him she already understood their night was over. Just as well. If she’d still been spread across the table like a porno all-you-can-eat buffet, he probably would have dived right back in.

“I’m sorry.” From behind her, he slipped his arms around her waist and kissed the side of her neck, inhaling deeply to carry her scent away with him. “I have to go.”

“I figured.”

“It’s work.”

“I understand.” Her tone didn’t match her words. She said she understood, but her tone said she’d carry a grudge all the same. She turned inside the circle of his arms to face him. “Is it Mercer?”

He donned his best poker face. “Mercer, who?”

“Ed Mercer, the guy you met the other day on the poker run. Works at City Hall.”

He looked at her sharply. “How do you know that?”

She rocked back on her heels and looked smug. “I took down his license plate number. Then I had someone at the DMV run the number. You’re not the only one with contacts, you know.”

“Good investigative work.” He gave her the compliment before leaning in closer and pointing his finger in his face. “Forget everything you know about Ed Mercer, okay?”

“Okay, but maybe I should go along with you.” Her eyes lit up. “I could be your back up.”

“Ab-so-freaking-lutely not.” He ran his hand through his hair and glanced at the clock. He for damn sure didn’t have time for this. “Look, I’ll call you tomorrow and explain.”

“Don’t bother.” She turned back to the sink.

Irritation itched at him. Damned reverse psychology. “Annabel... don’t make this any more difficult than it already is.”

“I’m not,” she declared. “I’m making it easy. Don’t come over. Don’t call. We did what we did. Now you have to go to work. The end.”

“I don’t want you to have regrets.” He couldn’t live with himself if she regretted what had happened between them. He was almost certain he could talk her into seeing him again if he just had a little more time.

“I don’t.” Her voice bit off the words so tightly that he didn’t believe her for one second.

She might get physically hurt if she went with him, but leaving her emotionally bruised felt all wrong, too. But he had no choice, damn it! He’d make one last stab at setting things right between them and then he’d get out of there. Tugging on her shoulders, he turned her to face him. She did, but she took her own sweet time shaking excess water from her hands and drying them on a dishtowel.

“Walk me to the door.”

Great, now she looked vulnerable and dejected. He didn’t want her to feel either one of those things because of him. He curled his fingers around hers, encouraged that she let them remain.

Hell, it was part of his job to think on his feet, to come up with the right words for any situation. Normally, this would be the time for something light, something glib. Something meaningless like “Had a good time. I’ll call you.” But the one time he would have meant it, she’d taken the punch out of that line.

“Thanks for tonight,” he said once they reached the door. “It was special.”

“For me, too.” She crossed her arms and shivered.

He wanted more than anything to stay and warm her up again from the inside out. “I wouldn’t leave like this if I didn’t have to.”

“Yes, you would. That’s your pattern. I was expecting it.”

Wow, that put him in his place. “Look,” he said, more frustrated than he’d been in a long while. “I can’t take you with me. It’ll probably be one long bore. But just in case it’s not, it doesn’t involve you and I don’t want you getting hurt.” He lifted her chin and looked into clear blue eyes that beckoned him into uncharted depths. “I’ll call you tomorrow?”

Unflinching, she answered, “I really don’t want you to.”

He didn’t allow the finality of her words to register. He was a firm believer in tomorrow. “Then I’ll see you next week at
Let’s Talk
.”

“Oh, right, the follow-up show. I’ll see you then—if I don’t run into you first.”

He could see the effort that went into her small joke and he chuckled, dropping a last kiss on her lips. “In the best interest of my Porsche, I hope you don’t.” He opened the door and stepped outside. “Bye, Annabel.”

“Be careful,” she said, kissing him lightly.

“I will.” He paused, ready to take off.

“Here, take this.” Holding the door open, she thrust a small packet in his hand. “You’ll need it before I will.”

By the time he realized it was the last remaining condom, he was alone on the porch. A solid oak barrier standing between them.

“Annabel!” He rapped his fist against the door. The porch light went dark. The foyer light immediately followed.

With a shake of his head, he turned and ran through the slicing rain to the waiting limo.

Annabel’s body thrummed with frustration as she closed the door on Max and ignored the sound of his voice calling her name.

He’d promised her all night, damn it!

She hadn’t wanted him to leave on an adventure without her, with the promises unfulfilled, and one condom left unused. Just like a man to stick her with kitchen duty while he went off on another adventure.

Her every compulsive instinct yelled at her to tidy up. For once, some small part of her rebelled against the notion. She didn’t want to be the good little girl left behind to do the grunt work anymore.

With her chin raised, she headed up the stairs, but jumped at a chirping sound on the bottom step. She looked down to discover Max’s cell phone. She scooped it up. Hmmm. The caller might be another woman looking for late-night company. Or it could be important.

An emergency even.

Or an update on the stakeout.

“Hello?”

“Who’s this?” demanded a voice as rough as sandpaper. “Where’s Max?”

“Who’s this?”

“Tell Max—No! Don’t tell Max anything. Crap, I shoulda never got involved in this mess.” Click.

Well! She didn’t know what to make of the message, but Max would. It might have been Mercer. It might mean trouble. She looked out just in time to see the limo’s taillights round the corner.

If she hurried, maybe she could still catch him.

She slipped into the kick-ass gorgeous shoes she’d worn to the ceremony, pulled her raincoat out of the closet, grabbed her car keys, and rushed toward the garage.

Max imagined even James Bond didn’t arrive at many stakeouts in a chauffeur-driven limousine, but what the hell?

A motley assortment of teenaged boys on the corner—maybe gang-bangers, probably up to no-good—scattered like cockroaches when Eduardo dropped off Max a couple of blocks from the alleged crime in progress. Max pulled the lapels of his tux over his white shirt and kept to the deep, dark shadows while he edged toward the city warehouse. The pouring rain added another layer of fun to the adventure. Soaked to the skin, he ducked into a protected doorway with an unobstructed view.

As Mercer had predicted, a nondescript moving van backed up to the loading dock. Ghouls in dark clothing hunched their shoulders against the downpour, scurrying in and out of the building, filling the truck with large, unwieldy boxes.

Keeping an eye out for Mercer, Max about jumped out of his skin when a mountain-sized human tapped him on the shoulder.

“Damn, Roger! Don’t sneak up on me like that!”

The mountain chuckled with a deep rumble. “Whatever you say, man. I thought we were recording this on the sly. But next time, I’ll just pull into the parking lot and honk the horn.”

“Point taken,” Max grumbled. “Do you have a long-angle night lens? We need to be able to read the labels on those boxes and capture as many faces as possible.”

“I’ve got the distance for that, but the rain’s a problem. And the lack of light.” Roger held his plastic-covered video camera to his eye and recorded for a minute before shaking his head. “I can make out the words on the boxes, but the faces are fuzzy. I need to get closer. Maybe I can get on that roof next door without attracting attention.”

Warily, Max looked from the roof to the cameraman and back. “Uh huh, did you bring an extension ladder?”

“I thought you could give me a boost.”

“Me and what forklift?”

“Listen, do you want my help or not? It’s the middle of the night, it’s raining, and believe it or not, you weren’t the only one gettin’ lucky. So if you don’t need me, I’ve got better things to do.”

“I want your help.” Keeping an eye on the activity at the warehouse, Max scowled. “How do you know what I was doing?”

“I saw who you left the ceremony with. And seeing as how my invitation for tonight’s caper didn’t indicate black tie, I don’t imagine you came here from your own lonely bed.” Roger pulled a black T-shirt out of his backpack and tossed it to Max. “Here, put this on over that neon sign of a shirt.”

“Uh, about who I was with...” He dodged behind the cameraman, took off his jacket, and tugged the black T-shirt into place. “She wouldn’t want—I wouldn’t want her to think—”

Roger clapped a hand on Max’s shoulder and turned him toward the corner as he slipped back into his jacket. “It’s cool, dude. I won’t say anything.”

They fell silent as they closed in on the action. Closer than Max wanted to be. Still watching for Mercer, he occasionally thought he heard a footstep behind him. But when he turned to look, there was no one. Before long, his dress shoes began to squish, and the foot without the sock developed blisters.

The two men angled around behind a building cattycorner to the warehouse. A couple of orange road barrels lay on their sides. Max’s sense of unease grew. They should have stayed where they’d been in the first place.

Hell, he should have stayed where he’d been when he got the call. Even in this stinking back alley that smelled like mildew, piss, and dead rats, Annabel’s sweet fresh scent drifted around him. It was all he could do not to abandon the lure of breaking this story wide open and turning around instead. He wanted to go back to her and pick up where they’d left off, but this was his job. And something rotten was definitely going down.

“Let’s roll one of those barrels down to that fire escape,” Roger stage-whispered.

Stuck for a better idea, Max agreed. Roger attached a strap to his camera and slung it over his neck to free his hands, but the burden hampered his movements. Every sound magnified in Max’s mind as they grappled with the weighted barrel, scraped it across gravel, and ended up rolling it across the cameraman’s toe.

“Holy bat shit.” He released the words in a hiss while hopping up and down with his foot in his hand.

A slim shadow separated itself from a sheltered doorway, and Max instinctively crouched into attack position. Flinging himself forward, recognition would have halted him, but momentum sent him crashing full speed into Annabel. For a second he thought his previous longing for her had conjured her image, but his arms around her sweet shoulders verified her presence.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Stunned, he pulled her into a hug despite his displeasure.

“Getting wet.” She snuggled into the embrace.

“
Why
are you here?”

“You left this at my house.” She pulled his cell phone out of her trench coat pocket. “Some guy called right after you left. I thought it might be Mercer.”

“What did he say?”

“It was disjointed, but I thought you should know he was trying to reach you.”

Annabel’s presence made the whole scene even more surreal. He tried to follow her words, but he felt off balance and out of sync. “How did you know where I was going?”

“I followed you.”

“What is this? A frigging parade?” He threw up his hands, uncertain whether to shake her or kiss her. A premonition of doom washed over him. Whatever happened next, he had to get rid of her before this escapade turned into a major shit-show. He took the phone out of her hand and dropped it into a pocket. “Thanks. Now, go away.” The words came out sternly, but he ruined the effect with a swift kiss that somehow deepened and lengthened and expanded into a distraction that grabbed his full attention until Roger tapped him on the shoulder.

When he finally managed to pull away from her, the cameraman gave him a big thumb’s up.

“But I can help.” She moved to one side of the barrel. “Let’s just get this into place, then I’ll leave. Where do you want it?”

Roger accepted her presence and assistance as a matter of course. Her added muscle helped not a bit, but the three of them wrestled it into place. Max’s niggling worry for her safety mounted.

“Now go,” he told her.

“Sure. I’ll just be the lookout until Roger gets up on the roof. I assume you want to avoid those guys loading that truck at the warehouse.”

“No,” he began. “I want you to—” He stopped talking because she’d already snuck around the corner and out of sight. Damn.

Max didn’t know exactly when he’d lost control of the evening, but it was probably when he’d arrived at Annabel’s more than seven hours before and caught sight of her dressed like Snow White’s naughty sister.

He turned to watch the cameraman’s first attempt at hoisting himself on top of the barrel. A whoosh of air escaped him after his failed leap.