Книга - Hot Prospect

Hot Prospect
Julie Kistler


Chicago cop Jake Calhoun is used to playing by the rules. But that's all for nothing when he's forced to team up with civilian insider Zoë Kidd, posing as romantic honeymooners at a resort.Flaky Zoë has no real job, reads tarot cards and claims to be psychic–not exactly "marriage" material for Jake. But her pert little body–and the cozy bedroom–has him constantly thinking about s-e-x.Zoë's never met anyone like sexy, blue-eyed Jake. Okay, he's got too many rules and is far too straight, but his karma is calling out to her. And she's determined to help play detective on this quirky case, despite his protests. But as they maintain their cover as loving newlyweds, it's harder and harder to stop thinking about s-e-x.The prospects for them slipping under the covers are heating up!









Jake’s hand slid to the top button on his jeans. Pop!


“I’ll just…” Zoë choked. “I’ll just turn around.” How the hell could she pose as a newlywed with this guy?

“Uh, you do that…” he mumbled.

She spun around on the changing-room bench so fast she got a splinter in her bottom through her underpants. Blushing, she managed to scramble into the yoga pants, jacket and shoes. Three seconds tops. But she could still hear the sound of his unzipping and rustling and stripping behind her.

Torture, plain and simple.

Fully clothed, Zoë stood. “Ready?” she inquired trying to sound casual, while the image of Jake’s naked chest and his hand snaking over his zipper remained branded in her brain.

Her gaze skittered over to his side of the room. Wowza.

Jake didn’t wear underwear. No tighty whities. No boxers. Nada. And he had a great butt. One of the all-time-great butts. She was going to be haunted by it for the rest of her life.

Zoë flushed. His bare pecs and abs, his butt, all within the past five minutes.

How was she ever going to survive this fake honeymoon?


Dear Reader,

As we kick off a special anniversary year for Temptation, I’m thrilled that my three TRUE BLUE CALHOUNS get to share in the excitement!

I love a heroic hero, and I don’t think you can do better than men who are willing to take the heat, whether that heat comes from family, job or…love. So I’ve had a blast working with this trio of brothers who happen to be Chicago cops.

There’s big brother Jake, definitely True Blue in Hot Prospect. When by-the-book Jake runs into Zoë Kidd, he doesn’t realize that she just may be the perfect foil for him. But it’s when you throw curves at a straight arrow that the fun begins!

And then you’ll meet middle brother Sean, more of a rebel, in Cut to the Chase. This detective has an uncanny knack for piercing to the heart of things, but Abra Holloway, on the lam and in trouble, is in no mood to be discovered or uncovered.

Last up is baby bro Cooper, who starts Packing Heat in order to wrestle with uncompromising FBI agent Violet O’Leary. Violet’s handcuffs may just come in handy when it comes to apprehending her man.

Lust, larceny and lawmen in love! What could be more fun?

I hope you’ll visit my Web site at www.juliekistler.com to drop me a note or let me know what you think. And I hope you’ll fall a little bit in love with the TRUE BLUE CALHOUNS, just as I did!

Best,

Julie Kistler


Hot Prospect

Julie Kistler






www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)




Contents


Chapter 1 (#u00ebdd24-bfc7-55be-b159-a10b41b3a9c3)

Chapter 2 (#u488ea4ac-d911-5f2a-88f8-43d5846eb215)

Chapter 3 (#u20fe03e5-a053-5de5-be24-246a0913a0f0)

Chapter 4 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 5 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)




1


JAKE CALHOUN CAST a jaded eye at the noisy tourists milling around Chicago’s Navy Pier. Lots of people. But not the one he was looking for.

“Where are you, Dad?” he muttered. Damn it, anyway. The last thing Jake needed to be doing this fine summer day was playing spy games with his dad. Especially when he was supposed to be halfway to Wisconsin by now, halfway to an actual vacation, his first in a long time.

But Jake knew the drill. Duty. Loyalty. Responsibility. Those were the words he lived by. So when his father had called and growled, “Meet me at Navy Pier. Ferris wheel. Now,” Jake knew his vacation would have to take a back seat.

“Meet him at the Ferris wheel,” he grumbled. “What sense does that make?” He ground his hands into the pockets of his jeans, casting a quick glance up at the carefree people laughing and waving as they rolled around on the big ol’ wheel. He shook his head. Nope. It made no sense.

“Where is he?” Jake’s frown deepened as he cased the pier one more time. This was so strange. And so very unlike his father. Since when did gruff, by-the-book Michael Calhoun, one of five deputy superintendents of police for the city of Chicago, in line to be First Deputy, set up secret meetings at Ferris wheels in the middle of the day? And since when did Michael Calhoun need his son’s help for anything more important than painting the garage or driving Grandma Calhoun to the dentist?

None of this made sense. Jake’s feeling of foreboding just kept inching higher. And it didn’t get any lower when he finally caught sight of his dad. “A coat?” Jake said out loud. “It’s got to be a hundred degrees out here, and he’s wearing a freakin’ trench coat.”

Add up the coat, an equally ridiculous hat pulled down over his brow, and his studious attempt to appear nonchalant, and the senior Mr. Calhoun might as well have stenciled “suspicious” on his forehead. He was sitting on a bench, staring out into Lake Michigan, looking like any run-of-the-mill criminal waiting to make a drop. Sheesh. The man was a career cop. He knew better.

“You’ve even got a briefcase,” Jake said in disbelief as he neared his dad. “What are you doing?”

“Ssshhh. Sit down. Don’t look at me. Don’t let on you know me.”

Jake folded his arms over his chest. “Aw, c’mon, Dad. Whatever game you’re playing, it’s not working.”

His father snapped, “Sit down and shut up.”

When Michael Calhoun spoke in that tone, his sons knew better than to buck him. Reluctantly Jake took a seat on the other end of the bench, stared out toward the lake and waited for an explanation.

“So?” he tried eventually, feeling like an idiot for not looking at his father as he spoke to him. “Are you going to tell me what this is all about?”

“You in a hurry?”

“I’d really like to get this show on the road and get it over with. Sean and Coop are probably already at the fishing cabin, wondering what the heck happened to me,” Jake reminded him.

“Screw your vacation,” his dad said sharply. “Your brothers can wait. I got a problem. It needs to be fixed, fast. And you’re the only one who can help.”

Jake didn’t know what to make of that. Sure, he was the oldest son. Sure, everybody knew that he and his father were cut from the same no-nonsense cloth, that they spoke the same language, that when he needed something done, Michael Calhoun turned to Jake first. But that didn’t usually involve mysterious meetings at the Navy Pier.

“What exactly is the nature of this problem?” Jake asked, in the same even tone he would’ve used to question a witness.

“A woman.”

Aw, jeez. His father had a problem with a woman? That he didn’t need to hear.

“Not what you think,” his dad said gruffly.

“I wasn’t thinking anything.”

“You better not be.” Exhaling sharply, Michael Calhoun leaned back into the bench. “You should know me better than that.”

No response necessary.

“Okay, so here it is. Some chick showed up out of the blue a few weeks ago,” he explained tersely, still not looking at Jake. “She says her name is Toni, and she says…”

He trailed off, and Jake had to prompt him. “And? What did she say?”

Finally his father began again. Staring straight ahead, he muttered, “She says she’s my daughter.”

Jake blinked.

“Yeah, that’s right. My illegitimate daughter,” he finished in a bitter undertone. “What a load of horse manure.”

But Jake was still back on daughter. Had he fallen into a black hole or something?

“You hear me?” his dad barked.

“Yeah. Some chick named Toni says she’s your illegitimate daughter,” he said automatically. But when illegitimate and Michael Francis Calhoun were spoken in the same breath, the world might as well start spinning on a new axis.

“So this Toni,” his father continued, spitting out the name. “She comes to me, and she says her mother was a good-looking con woman I allegedly gave a tumble back in the midseventies.” His lip curled into a sour smile. “She says her mom was running some kind of lonely-hearts racket out of the Shakespeare district back when I was still walking a beat, and me, being such a good cop as I was, I caught her red-handed shaking some old guy down. But because she’s such a looker, I told her I’d take sexual favors and some cash on the side rather than bust her. Me being such a dirty cop and all.”

Jake didn’t bother to ask if it was true. He knew his old man as well as he knew himself, and there was just no way. He was sure. Or at least that’s what he told himself, quickly, before he had a chance to think about this. The midseventies. When he was barely out of diapers and Sean was on the way. When his parents were poor and happy and as crazy as ever, just starting their lives together, making macramé wall hangings to cover the bare spots and scrounging garage sales for cribs and high chairs. Poor. But honest. Always honest.

The idea that his dad would cheat on his mother with some low-rent con artist was…unthinkable. Wasn’t it?

Absolutely. Jake set his jaw. “So I’m guessing this fairy tale didn’t end there,” he said darkly, waiting for the payoff.

“You guess right.” His father tipped up the brim of his crazy hat far enough to wipe sweat off his brow. “I met with this Toni broad a couple of times, just to shake out what the story was. At first I thought, you know, maybe this line of bull is something her mother fed her, and maybe she really does think I’m her old man, so maybe I should let her down easy.”

“She got you to feel sorry for her?” Aw, man. Tough guy Michael Calhoun, feeling sorry for a hustler with a ridiculous story. Jake sighed. “So she’s that smooth, huh?”

“Yeah, she’s smooth all right.” He shook his head. “Too smooth. It makes me think that part of her story is true, that her mother probably was a grifter. Trained from the womb, you know?”

“So what happened?”

“So she asks me to come across with a hundred thou,” his father went on. “I laugh in her face, like, yeah, your story was entertaining, but not a hundred-grand entertaining. Then she threatens to go to the papers, with ‘Love Child Exposes Chicago’s Number-Two Cop in Protection Racket’ splashed all over the place.”

Jake whistled under his breath. “And why didn’t you have her arrested? Last time I looked, you were still a cop and blackmail was still a felony. Or do you want me to do it? Is that what you need? Hell, I can get a warrant in about three—”

“Use your head, junior,” Michael Calhoun shot back, sending his son a savage look. He hadn’t called Jake “junior” in at least ten years. “If she really does go to the papers with this stuff, no matter how ridiculous, they’ll pass me over for First Deputy so fast it will make your head spin. They can’t promote a guy whose name is all over the papers as part of some alleged sex scandal, even if it is bogus.”

“Dad—”

“No, Jake. That promotion is mine, right in my hands. I been waiting for this ever since I joined the department. I’m not screwing it up now because of some little tootsie making up fairy tales.”

“But if there’s nothing to what she says—”

“I was a beat cop then,” he insisted, “in the Shakespeare district, right where she says. We did have a rash of complaints about a beautiful woman fleecing men in the area, and we never caught her. Her story sounds just plausible enough to cause me a whole lot of trouble.”

“But you can do DNA testing,” Jake put in. “You can prove she’s not your daughter.”

“After I’m raked through the papers for months,” his father said acidly. “And it’s not just the promotion. We’re talking your mother here. You know her. With all this stuff in the papers, she’d either haul off and kill me herself or just have a stroke, long before I got the DNA results back.”

“Mom.” Jake swallowed. He hadn’t thought about her reaction. He loved his mother dearly, but she wasn’t what you’d call a clearheaded, rational person when it came to her husband. She was hotheaded and had a jealous streak a mile wide. Always had. Mom, confronted with these accusations…ouch.

“And now, as if it couldn’t get any worse, the girl has disappeared.” Michael Calhoun shook his head.

“What do you mean, disappeared?”

“I mean she set up another meeting,” he said grimly. “A week ago. I was sitting out there on my park bench, waiting for her. But she never showed.”

“You think she got scared off and took a powder?”

His father shrugged. “I don’t know what to think. I put Vince on it, and he can’t find a trace.”

“Vince?” Jake rolled his eyes skyward. This just kept getting worse. Vince had been his father’s right-hand man on the force for twenty-five years. He was loyal to a fault, a good guy from the get-go, but not exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer, even on his best days before he went deaf and had one knee and a hip replaced. Not exactly an ace investigator. “Dad, Vince retired six or seven years ago. What are you doing bringing him in on this?”

“He’s my friend. I can trust him,” he replied. “You got a problem with that?”

“No, of course not, but…” But now the leading candidate for First Deputy Superintendent of Police was not only conducting some kind of secret personal investigation concerning allegations of blackmail and professional misconduct, but he was also involving other people. Other people like Vince, who could stumble into all sorts of trouble. Carefully Jake asked, “You’re not using department resources to do this, are you?”

All he got in response was a very dark look.

“Okay, forget I asked.” Jake sighed. “But if she’s gone, why isn’t this over?”

“’Cause I’m worried, okay? What if she’s laying low till she can blow the story? Or plotting some new strategy? Or something worse?” He shuddered. “I need to know. Now.”

“And what is it you want me to do?” Jake asked slowly, dreading the answer.

“I know you’ve got a couple of weeks off. And your profile is a lot lower than mine.” He paused. Jake knew what was coming. Not that that made it any more appetizing. “I got a real bad feeling about this, like she’s out there somewhere waiting to strike. Or that she was consorting with a more dangerous class of perp and got herself offed or something. You gotta find her and make this go away before she can cause any more trouble.”

“Dad, I…” I don’t want to get knee-deep in this mess. I want to go on vacation. I want to go fishing with my brothers, as planned. But he was the responsible one, the one who never said no. Too late to start having the good sense to decline now.

“Did you think about asking Sean?” he tried, clutching at one last straw. “He’s the detective, not me. He’s the one with…” What had the papers said? Sean had cracked a couple of supposedly uncrackable cases and gained a reputation rather quickly. Sean, who never wanted to be a cop in the first place, had been promoted to detective in spite of himself. Jake smiled. Funny how that turned out. He couldn’t quite keep the sarcasm out of his voice when he said, “According to the press releases, Sean’s the one with the uncanny instinct for the truth.”

“I’m not asking Sean,” his father said quickly. “You’re my boy, Jakie. I know how you think. Not that seat-of-the-pants baloney like Sean. You’re like me. Play by the rules.” He tapped his temple with one finger. “Think it through.”

Yeah, I know. That’s me. Play by the rules. Jake, number two on the list of True Blue Calhouns, right behind his dad.

“And I don’t want you involving either of your brothers or your mother in this,” Michael Calhoun continued, looking very fierce all of a sudden. “Nobody knows. This is between you and me. You got that?”

“Yeah.” Between you, me, Vince and the missing tootsie, he thought bleakly. Like he would really want to share this information with anyone, anyway. The more he thought about it, the more he realized Dad was right on that point. No way he could tell Sean or Cooper that their father was being blackmailed by some scam artist claiming to be their illegitimate half sister. Since Sean and their old man had never seen eye-to-eye, the middle Calhoun son would probably get all moody and upset on Mom’s behalf, while the youngest, Cooper, would no doubt think it was a hoot and then want to find this girl and hang out and have a few beers or something. Sean would growl about how the old man couldn’t be trusted, while Coop would be going, A new sister. Cool!

Taking Dad’s side was, as always, left to Jake.

“So what have you got to go on? Real name? Record? Anything?”

His father scrambled to open the briefcase. “She was pretty cagey, so I haven’t got much. Never could get prints or anything to run. But I had Vince take some pictures the last time I met with her.”

He handed over a couple of blurry shots, partially obscured by tree branches and leaves, showing two people sitting on what looked like a park bench. As far as Jake could tell, one of the figures was his father, in the same getup he was wearing now, while the woman sitting next to him had a frizzy mop of platinum blond hair and dark sunglasses. There were a few more pictures, showing her as she walked away from the bench and closer to the photographer, but they were equally lousy.

“Vince losing his eyesight now, too?” Jake asked, squinting at the out-of-focus photos.

“What?”

“Nothing.” Jake flipped back through the stack. The only one that appeared to be completely in focus was taken from the waist down. Oh, great. He had a crystal-clear view of her feet.

The photos revealed that she was medium height, curvy enough to attract a lot of male attention, and trashy enough to be tottering in high-heeled sandals with scruffy, way-too-tight, way-too-low-cut blue jeans. Toe rings. Nail polish. Sparkly hooker shoes with straps that crisscrossed over her ankle. Other than that…she could’ve been anyone.

He frowned. “Is this it?” He’d never find her with nothing more than a few fuzzy photographs taken from behind a tree and one sharp shot of her legs.

“Vince got somebody to run what we had through the system on the sly, but it came up empty. I looked for matches with the old files from the seventies, too, but that led nowhere.”

“Dad, I don’t think there’s any way—”

“I got one other lead,” his father interrupted. “The last time I met her, about a week ago, when Vince took the pictures, I told him to stick with her and see where she went. He followed her to…”

He dipped back into the briefcase, holding up a sheet from a memo pad. “Okay, here it is. Vince tailed her to someplace called Red Sails Specialty Tours, a fancy travel agency on Michigan Avenue. He said he sneaked in behind her, all casual, and pretended he was interested in cruises, you know, looking at the brochures, so he could eavesdrop.”

That was when his dad actually cracked a smile, and Jake could see why. It was pretty funny imagining grumpy old Vince shuffling into some travel agency and peering through his thick bifocals at the Caribbean cruise brochures.

“He hear anything good?”

“Yeah.” Once again, Michael Calhoun consulted the bits of paper in his briefcase. “He heard her book tickets on a tour that leaves from O’Hare tomorrow. Two tickets on something called the Explorer’s Journey. Vince said it cost a bundle and she paid cash, right then and there.”

“So maybe you’re not the only game she’s playing? Maybe she squeezed some money out of some other mark and she’s blowing town on her take. Or maybe she’s playing a lonely-hearts racket of her own, and she conned the mark into taking her on some fancy trip.” He considered. “Tomorrow, huh?”

“Yeah. That’s why this is such a rush.” His lips pressed into a narrow line. “This should be easy, Jake. Piece of cake. All you have to do is go to this Red Sails joint, book yourself on to the same tour, get next to her, and get the goods.”

“You want me to take her tour?” Jake echoed. “Can’t I just show up at O’Hare, arrest her, and be done with it?”

“You can’t arrest her! Haven’t you been listening?” He shook his head impatiently. “You have to stay undercover, Jake, get next to her, find out who else she’s scammed, what she plans to do next. Maybe we can take her down for something else and get rid of her without bringing me into it at all.”

Jake didn’t seriously think this woman was his father’s illegitimate daughter. Not for a second. He narrowed his eyes, wondering about his father’s motives. How much of this had to do with his dad wanting to avoid a scandal? And how much with pride?

Did Deputy Superintendent Michael Calhoun want little Miss Toni taken down because he truly thought she was dangerous? Or because she’d dared to mess with him?

“So you seriously want me to sign up for some…” What had he called it? “Explorer’s Journey?” Jake glanced down at the last photo, the one from the waist down. “She doesn’t look like the type to be climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. Not in those shoes.”

His father remained unamused. “Just do it, Jake. Sign up for the tour, figure out what the deal is, make her go away. I’ll foot the bill. But this is your chance to come through for me, Jake. I need you.”

Way to push all the right buttons, old man. Jake really didn’t want to sign up for a tour at the last minute, just to follow some probably half-cocked lead to nowhere. Staring out into the gray-blue water of Lake Michigan, he ran a hand through his hair, letting himself imagine for a second that he was going to say no. He conjured up one last cozy image of the fishing cabin in Wisconsin, of his brothers, a cooler full of beer, a nice big lake trout frying up in a pan…and then he banished it all. The cabin, the boys, the beer, the fish, all of it.

Bottom line—when his dad asked, Jake responded. They all knew that. This is your chance to come through for me, Jake. I need you.

He was the oldest, the responsible one, the one Dad could depend on. He glanced over at his father, sitting there waiting for an answer. Jake nodded. “Yeah, okay. I’ll do it.”

IF THE EXPLORER’S JOURNEY, whatever the heck it was, left tomorrow, he didn’t have much time. He quickly left messages on both Sean and Cooper’s cell phones that they shouldn’t expect him in Wisconsin. For once, he was happy to reach voice mail. At least this way he didn’t have to offer anything more in the way of explanations. Then he headed over to the Red Sails travel agency.

There was only one clerk working this Friday afternoon, and she seemed quite frazzled as she tried to deal with ringing telephones and a beeping fax machine. “I’m new,” she said into the phone about seventeen times, her voice trilling with increasing panic. He heard her wail “Please don’t yell at me!” another five or six times.

Not a good sign. Jake tried to catch her eye as he lounged there in front of her desk, but she kept holding a “wait a minute, I can’t talk to you yet” finger in the air and jabbering on into her headset about something to do with a cruise ship and stranded passengers. “I’m new,” she tossed in yet again. “Please don’t yell at me!”

Feeling more than a tad irritable, Jake let his eyes wander over the posters of Jamaica and Tahiti, hoping against hope that if he had to be on it, the Explorer’s Journey was at least headed somewhere good. Maybe these explorers went in for scuba diving or island hopping. Hawaiian shirts and mai tais with little umbrellas in them might be fun. Man, he needed a vacation.

As the girl behind the desk hyperventilated into her phone, Jake hunted through the racks of brochures, looking for clues, but there was nothing there about any Explorer’s Journey. “With my luck, it’ll be the North Pole,” he muttered.

At last, she punched a button on her phone, took off her headset, heaved a big sigh and stood up. “Can I help you?” she asked doubtfully, as if she already knew that whatever it was he wanted, she wouldn’t have it.

“Hi,” he offered with a smile, trying his best to work around his annoyance level. “Bad day, huh?”

“I’m new,” she blurted out, waving her hands helplessly. “The computer isn’t working, the other agent had to run off to find someone to fix the computers, and there’s a whole cruise ship full of Beanie Baby collectors stranded in Puerta Vallarta with possible dysentery.” Fear colored her face as she stared up at him. “You won’t tell anybody, will you? I mean, if they do have dysentery, it may not be the fault of Red Sails or the cruise. It could be a coincidence.”

“Uh-huh.”

She started to sniffle, her voice rising, tears brimming in her eyes. “I unplugged the phone. I had to. I don’t know what to tell them. It’s not my fault! I wasn’t even here when their cruise was arranged.”

“I’m sure they’ll understand.” He leaned in closer, nabbing and handing her a tissue from the box on her desk. He tried to think of something nice to say. “Look on the bright side—if they’re stranded together, at least they have something to talk about.”

“Well, there is that.” She stared at him. “Did you need something? Not a cruise, I hope.”

“I’m actually not sure what it is. Something called the Explorer’s Journey?”

Dabbing at her eyes, she blinked three or four times, as if that would help jump-start her brain. She shook her head. “I’ve never heard of it.”

Afraid even the slightest impatience would knock her over the edge into a collapse, he tried to ooze nonthreatening, nice-guy vibes. He was usually pretty good at that. “I know someone who booked this Explorer’s Journey from this agency. Is there somewhere you can look for information about it?”

“The computers are down,” she said in a quavery tone.

He crooked his thumb at the filing cabinets lining the wall behind her. “How about your files?”

She scrunched up her face, staring vacantly at him.

“They look alphabetical. Maybe the cabinet that says E-F-G on it,” Jake suggested. “E for Explorers?”

“Oh.” She stumbled back there and pulled open the top drawer. “Hmm…these are mostly European tours. What did you say it was again?”

“Explorer’s Journey.”

“Is that Europe?” she asked, giving him a hopeful glance.

“I don’t know.”

She sighed again. “I don’t see anything.” After poking through those files for a few more minutes, she continued on to the second drawer, fumbled through a few more folders, let her shoulders sag in defeat, turned back, saw the look on Jake’s face, and—just at the point where he was ready to leap over the desk and start looking himself—reluctantly returned to her halfhearted search. “Nope. I don’t see anything…oh, wait. What did you say it was? Explorer’s Journey. Here it is.”

Jake held his breath. Although she seemed astonished to have located it, she actually had a file folder in her hands. The label pasted to the front really did identify it as Explorer’s Journey. She slid it onto her desk and opened it up, carefully, slowly flipping the pages over one at a time.

“Is there a brochure or anything in there? Any information?”

“No. Just the registration pages. They look really full. It must be popular.” She continued to turn pages at the speed of mud. Slow mud. “There’s one a month, I guess. Here’s March… April…”

Could she be any slower, even if she really, really tried? “I need July,” he reminded her, holding himself back from snatching the file away from her. “It’s supposed to leave tomorrow.”

“Here it is. July.” Peering down at it, she smoothed the page with one hand, blocking his view, neatly detaching a piece of pink memo paper clipped to the corner and setting it aside. “Oh, that’s too bad. All the spaces are filled.”

“Can’t you add me as an extra?” How hard could it be? He could see, even upside down, that there were names on all the lines, neatly divided into two columns. A quick count told him there were forty people scheduled to be on this trip. So what difference would it make if they went to forty-one?

“Oh, no, I couldn’t do that.” She turned the page around, pointing to the instructions scrawled across the top. Someone had written No Extras! No Waiting List! in big, bold letters.

Jake ignored that little problem for the moment, glancing down the list now that he had a chance to see it right side up, scanning for possibilities. One Antoinette, a Tonya, a Tori, and two names that just used T as a first initial. Plus there was one listed under the last name Antonini. The woman he was looking for could be any of them. Or none, if she had a pile of aliases.

“So you see I can’t add you,” she continued. “It’s very clear that I’m not allowed to do that even if I did know how to register you for this trip, which I don’t, because the computers are down and I can’t even look up what it costs or anything.”

She painstakingly reattached the pink memo and its paper clip and then moved to close the folder, but Jake laid a hand on top of hers. “Isn’t there any other way you can let me in on this tour? Anybody else I could contact? Any other source of info? Anything?”

“Not that I would know about…” Looking even more unhappy and put-upon, she glanced back at the beeping fax machine and blinking phone. “Here.” She shoved the folder at him. “You look.”

He flipped through it again, noting no contact name, no info, no help. But then he saw the pink memo attached to the June sheet, and his eyes caught the word “cancel.” Holding up the sheet of pink paper, he read aloud, “‘Zoë Kidd tried to cancel 6/12. Told her no cancel/no refund but would pass on her name if anyone wanted to buy her spot.’” He raised an eyebrow. “What about this? Can I buy her spot?”

“Oh. Well. I don’t know. I guess you can try,” she said with a shrug. “It’s nothing to do with me.”

Then she wandered back to the fax machine as Jake considered this stroke of luck.

The tour was full, but Zoë Kidd wanted to cancel and had a space available to give. For the first time since he’d heard his father’s unlikely tale, Jake Calhoun began to smile.

Zoë Kidd. She wanted to cancel. He wanted her spot.

Sounded like a match made in heaven.




2


ZOË BREATHED in the scent of sandalwood from her meditation candles. Lovely. Soothing. Cleansing.

Sitting there on her new purple yoga mat, she maneuvered her legs into the full lotus position, balancing her elbows on her knees and curling her index fingers and thumbs into the proper O’s.

She had a terrible impulse to sneeze, and she decided she probably shouldn’t have lit all eleven candles at the same time. The waves of sandalwood were really kind of overpowering. But eleven was her lucky number. And now that she had gotten herself twisted like a pretzel into the full lotus, she really didn’t want to extract herself just to blow out a few candles.

She closed her eyes and concentrated. Lovely. Soothing. Cleansing. Breathe the sandalwood, she ordered herself. And don’t think. Whatever you do, don’t think.

Yeah, right. Don’t think about the fact that today was supposed to have been her wedding day and tomorrow was supposed to have been the day that she and that snake Wylie left for their honeymoon on the Explorer’s Journey.

He was the one who’d wanted to get married, damn it. She was perfectly happy to live together. Or not even, just to coexist peacefully in their separate apartments. But no. He’d insisted they had to be married. And she’d said, But we’re not ready for that. We have issues. And he’d said, But, hon, I want to be a real couple, like regular people. I want to build a real life together. Which made her heart melt a little, just like he knew it would. If we have issues, Wylie had told her, so sincere, we can work through them.

Which should’ve been a hint right there that Wylie was off his rocker at that particular moment, because he was so not the work-through-your-issues type. But then, like the dim bulb she was, she had been thrilled to hear him finally admit that, yes, there were things that he needed to improve—because this was sure as heck the first time he’d ever said that, seeing as how he was convinced he was perfect. So she’d said, quite sternly, actually, Yes, Wylie, I will marry you, but only if we go on the Explorer’s Journey for our honeymoon because I just saw it on Oprah. Newlyweds only, all about communication, harmony, trust, blah, blah, blah, all the things we have trouble with. It’ll be the perfect way to work through some things, right there, right then. And we can begin our married life as full and equal partners, communicating, harmonizing, trusting.

Had there been a funny light of terror in his eyes when he’d agreed? Or was that just hindsight?

“Did you ever have any intention of doing the Explorer’s Journey with me?” she asked out loud. “And if not, why the hell couldn’t you say so before I paid for the damn thing?”

Well, there she was, with her eyes wide-open, not calm or relaxed or cleansed at all. And her right ankle was starting to kill her where it was mashed between her other leg and her lap, not to mention the fact that the backs of both thighs were plastered to her mat.

“Ow…” She wrenched herself out of her lotus position, peeling the sticky mat away from her skin. She was positively dripping with sweat in this hateful apartment. It was so humid, without a hint of a breeze. And all those candles were making it worse. “I shouldn’t be wearing shorts. But it’s too hot for long pants! And I could’ve afforded air-conditioning if I hadn’t paid for that stupid Explorer’s Journey. They can just stuff their no-cancellation policy.”

Well, she wasn’t feeling particularly meditative, was she? Maybe a few rounds with her tarot cards would help her get in touch with her higher power and stop all the angsting already.

Refastening one reddish-brown braid back over the top of her head, she slicked the moisture off her forehead with the back of one hand, swearing again, louder this time. Stupid, stupid Wylie for being too chicken to be part of a real couple. Stupid, stupid Zoë for ever thinking he was worth it in the first place. She’d ignored her cards on that one, when they kept throwing her the Prince of Hearts every time she asked about Wylie. Everyone knew the Prince of Hearts meant an Inconstant Suitor. Which described Wylie exactly.

“How can you respect a man who doesn’t know his own mind?” she groused. “I should’ve believed the cards.”

Zoë picked herself up off the ground and started rooting around on her bookshelves for her pack of Enchanted Tarot Cards. They had beautiful pictures and she really did find them soothing as long as they kept that nasty Inconstant Suitor card to themselves. The deck was on the bottom shelf, and she was bent over, reaching for the last card, which had slipped to the very back of the shelf, when she heard the clomp of footsteps coming up the stairs to her apartment. She paused. Maybe a new student, she thought. Which would be a very good thing, because she needed the extra money now that she’d spent every last dime she had on the nonrefundable Explorer’s Journey.

She raised her head, planning to call out to whoever it was to just come on in, but she lifted up too quickly, cracking her head squarely on the next shelf.

“Yeow!” she cried, stumbling back, scattering a waterfall of tarot cards like something out of Alice in Wonderland. There was only one card left in her hand.

She rubbed the back of her head, almost slipping as she stepped on one of the slick cards on the floor. She groaned. It had to be bad karma to drop all your tarot cards. “I guess I’d better pick ’em up.” She slid the one card she still had into the back pocket of her shorts and bent down to get the deck back together before the potential student walked in and saw the mess. But when she bent over, she started to feel really dizzy. “I must’ve bumped it harder than I thought,” she whispered, stretching her fingers to her toes, letting her head hang down to the floor while she recovered her equilibrium. It was at that point she heard the door open behind her.

“Come—” she began, but she only got the one syllable out.

“Stop, police!” a very male voice announced. “Don’t move!”

“What? Stay where I am?” Bent over with her backside in the air? Frozen to the spot, she stared at him through her legs. Good God, he had a gun! Kinda cute, but scary, with both his arms outstretched and that creepy gun pointed mostly at the floor. But he wasn’t wearing a uniform. Man. Gun. “Are you really a cop? Show me your badge!” she screamed.

He immediately pulled out a shield and flashed it at her. Okay, good. So he really was a cop.

“Were you shouting at someone?” he asked in a calmer voice, relaxing his stance a little as he surveyed the empty room.

“No. Myself, maybe,” she offered. “I hit my head and then I dropped my cards and…do I have to stay like this? All the blood is running to my head. I was already dizzy and now I feel like I’m going to faint.”

He backed off, putting the gun away, thank goodness, shutting her front door quietly. “No, no, get up. Please. Whatever. Sorry.”

“Whew.” Slowly, carefully, Zoë straightened, lifting a hand to her head. Yes, she was still a little light-headed, but not too bad. Meanwhile, his gaze was positively glued to her bottom. It was probably not his fault, she allowed, considering how brief her shorts were, especially when she’d been bent over like that. What was the poor thing supposed to look at?

But how humiliating. The only cute guy who’d been in her apartment for weeks, and he barged in while she was woozy, sweaty, upside down and had half her butt exposed. She ventured a glance his way. He didn’t look too upset by the short-shorts problem. In fact, he looked positively…intrigued. Zoë swallowed. Yep, he was still looking at her.

After tugging the edge of her shorts down, she pushed a few tendrils of hair back into her braids, blew on her face and hoped she wasn’t too flushed. Oh, forget it. She looked hideous. There was no point in trying to spruce herself up at this point. The light she’d seen in his eyes must be her imagination. No man in the world sent out vibes of interest to a woman who looked like this.

Careful to avoid all the spilled cards, she edged around so that at least her front side was facing him. And then she gave him a real once-over. Okay, twice. He knew she was looking. She knew he knew. And she didn’t care. Because the view was that good.

Light brown hair, cut short. Good, clean jawline. Blue eyes. Very blue. There was a sort of speculative, suspicious look in those eyes she found oddly attractive. That and his mouth. He had these quirky lips, kind of narrow and clever, fuller on the bottom. She liked the look of those lips. A lot.

He was tall, maybe six foot one or two, with broad shoulders, and a real presence. Nothing she could put her finger on but… Alive. Vital. Rooted. Right here. Right now. He looked like the kind of guy you would run to when a tornado just blew your house away and you didn’t have a thing left in the world and you didn’t care because you had him.

Zoë’s eyes met his. Good Lord, he was cute. In a very traditional, button-down, authority-figure way, of course, which was not her type at all. So incredibly and completely not her type. He’d pulled a gun on her, for goodness’ sake!

Now if he would only stop sending her those sizzling glances. They made her want to run to him and tackle him. Which was probably a very bad thing. She vowed to do a better job of being immune to whatever he was sending out.

She lifted her chin. “Why in the world did you come barreling in like that? Pointing that thing at me!”

“I heard thumps and a scream. The door was open, there was a definite haze in here, and it smelled like marijuana.” He looked kind of grouchy as he scanned the room again. “How many candles are you burning? And why?”

“I don’t think how many candles I’m burning is any of your business. And it’s sandalwood, not marijuana. Jeez Louise, what kind of cop are you?”

“I thought there might be a burglary in progress, or maybe some kind of drug party gone bad,” he explained curtly. “That does not smell like sandalwood. You’re not burning the candles to cover the pot smell, are you? Is anyone else here? Is there a back door?”

“No, no, and no. I’m alone. The candles are supposed to be good for meditation. I don’t have a back door.” She took a sniff. Good grief. He was right. It didn’t smell like sandalwood. No wonder she wasn’t getting any calmer. “I’m going to have to have a talk with the lady at the New Age store downstairs. She swore these were sandalwood.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well, it’s true.” She tried to plant her hands on her hips and look menacing, but her hand hit the smooth, hard edge of the tarot card poking out of her back pocket. Hmm…one card in her pocket. If one fell out or otherwise distanced itself from the pack, that was supposed to be significant. She pulled it out of her pocket and glanced down.

“That’s odd,” she murmured. It was a swirling pink card with two pretty swans outlined by a heart, with two tiny kissing cupids at the top. The two of hearts.

The True Love card.

Her heart did a little flip, but she ignored it. Instead she glared at the card in her hand. Talk about adding insult to injury. Even her tarot cards were mocking her.

So where was this True Love supposed to pop up? Between her and…

“Hello?” the cute cop interrupted. “If you’re done playing cards, I need to talk to you.”

Him? She gulped. Those beautiful blue eyes were staring at her, burning more steadily than all eleven candles. Her heart started to thump, beating to the most bizarre rhythm. True love. True love. True love. She felt all tingly, and her face was flushed with heat. What was wrong with her?

It was probably just the effect of too many aromatic candles, infecting her brain. Or maybe she’d hit her head harder than she realized. There was no romantic glow here at all. Just smoke and humidity.

She fanned herself with the two of hearts, using her other hand to pluck the neckline of her damp leotard away from her skin. Anything to generate some air. Cool down, chill out, she told herself. But she didn’t feel remotely cool or chilly.

Especially when his gaze seemed to catch and hold there on her chest. His eyes widened. She swallowed, surreptitiously casting a quick look down to see what he was staring at. Overheated Zoë. Wet leotard. Breasts that might as well have been bare in that thin, moist top, her nipples peaking against the slippery, wet fabric.

Uh-oh. She dropped the True Love card like a shot, kicking it out of the way as she quickly wrapped her arms over her front and turned away.

She was not, as it happened, all that shy about her body. She was used to leading her dance class in a skimpy leotard all the time. But this felt different. It felt like…dancing naked in front of a complete stranger. Even worse, it felt like dancing naked, totally on purpose and with one seductive reason, in front of your lover.

She couldn’t handle it. Pulling her top out in front, hoping she looked nonchalant, she unstuck it and flapped it harder, trying to dry herself off. But when she hazarded a glance back around at him, his gaze met hers, blazing like a beacon, and it was like, Pow! Kazam! Major meltdown happening here!

What the…?

Sometimes she had feelings about people, or even a little intuition, but nothing as overwhelming and hot as this. She didn’t just get an aura from him. No, this was like a laser beam, searing her all the way to the soul. I know him, she thought, shocked at the very idea. I know him!

He blinked, looking just as surprised as she was. Jake. One minute she had no idea who he was, and the next his name was right there in her brain, clear as day. His name was Jake. How did she know that?

Zoë took a step backward. This couldn’t be happening. One tarot card did not a lover make. And yet there was some kind of cosmic attraction going on here, and they both knew it.

She wasn’t used to this instant-electricity thing. She wasn’t used to looking at a guy for five minutes, thinking about laser beams and naked dancing, and totally wanting to jump him.

She was coming undone.

“Oh, dear! Well, I, uh…” She put a hand to her forehead, attempting to find something else in the room that needed her attention. But there wasn’t anything there. “The candles…it’s so hot in here. Maybe it’s the candles.”

Behind her, he cleared his throat. “You really should blow those out,” he said stiffly. “They’re a fire hazard.”

As she moved to blow out the nearest two, she stopped, glancing at him over her shoulder, her gaze skittering away again. She tried to make a joke, anything to puncture this bizarre mood. “So tell me, did you come here to bust me for excess candle burning?”

“No, actually, I came because…” He stopped. Sounding even more unsettled than she felt, he continued, “I’m looking for Zoë Kidd. Is that you?”

“Yes. But I didn’t…” She was planning on saying she didn’t have any reason to need a police officer when it hit her.

If there was a cop looking for her, there could only be one reason. Her shoulders slumped. Wylie. He’d probably run up a few too many parking tickets again. The very thought of Wylie was like a pitcher of cold water poured over her head.

Wylie equaled bad taste in men. Wylie equaled terrible judgment. Wylie equaled defeat.

After quickly dousing the remaining candles, Zoë went back to pick up the rest of her tarot cards, trying hard to ignore Mr. Cute Cop. She made a point of retrieving the two of hearts and jamming it back into the middle of the pack before she stacked the whole deck neatly on the bookshelf. “If this is about Wylie, I broke up with him almost a month ago. Any trouble he’s in is his problem, not mine. So if he said I would bail him—”

“No, it has nothing to do with him. I need you.”

Yeah, well, I need you, too, Jake. I dumped my boyfriend. I’m lonely. I’m bored. And you are one good-looking man.

Looking over at him, trying to make herself behave, she still felt that incredible heat. She still felt like stripping naked and leaping into his arms. She licked her bottom lip. I need you for a few good rolls on my sticky mat…

“What did you say?”

“Me? Nothing. Not a thing.” What, could he hear her thoughts now? His name suddenly popped into her head as if it always been there and now he could mind-read? This was getting spooky. She stuck a stray tendril of her hair back into the braids wrapped over the top of her head. “And what did you need with me?”

“Okay. Right. Let’s just…cut to the chase.”

He clenched his jaw, and she thought, Wow, that is one nice jaw. Do you think he would care if I touched it? before she regained the use of her brain and paid attention to his words again. Concentrate, Zoë. Concentrate. Why was it so incredibly hot in this room?

“You booked a place on the Explorer’s Journey, right?”

Zoë blinked. “You’re here because of the Explorer’s Journey?”

“The travel agency said the roster is full,” he explained. “I want to buy your spot.”

“You want to…?” He didn’t seem like the type. At all. But then she got the picture. Talk about your pitcher of cold water.

Zoë was not a stupid woman. She saw the handwriting on the wall. Mr. Cute Cop obviously had a Mrs. Cute Cop stashed at home, and the two of them wanted to go on the Explorer’s Journey. Newlyweds only, after all. Newlyweds who wanted to work on their communication skills, both in and out of bed. Given Mr. Cute Cop’s rather terse communication skills, as well as the heat emanating from his hard body, she could see why Mrs. Cute Cop would feel the need to take him on that particular trip.

“So you’ll sell me your ticket?” he asked.

“Sure,” she declared, trying to work up some enthusiasm.

Shaking her head, she rose from the floor, crossing to the desk where she’d stuck the travel packet. How silly was she? She’d gone from entertaining the mad notion that he was her karmic one-and-only True Love to figuring out he was someone else’s new husband, all in three seconds. So much for her psychic visions. She knew his name. How come she didn’t get the married part?

She glanced up. Funny, he wasn’t wearing a ring. And she did not get a married vibe from him at all, especially when you factored in his eyes being fastened to a variety of her body parts ever since he got here. Yes, he was a guy and guys did that kind of thing. But he just didn’t seem the type to be newly married and looking around, and she usually trusted her intuition when it came to guy matters.

Zoë considered this mystery for several seconds, before deciding there wasn’t anything she could do about it, and it was just too aggravating to contemplate. If he, his wife and his wandering eyes wanted to throw themselves into a newlywed encounter group, that was their business.

Wagging the Explorer’s Journey folio at him, she plastered on a wide, chipper smile. “This sucker was expensive and I’ll be glad to get it off my hands. But you do know it leaves first thing in the morning, right? Do you and your wife have time to pack?”

“I’m not married,” he said quickly.

She knew it! There was totally an unmarried aura just hovering all around him. She was thrilled for a second, realizing that her instincts had been right. But then she had another depressing thought.

“Oh.” Zoë crossed her arms over her chest. “So you’re taking your girlfriend. I thought you could only do the program if you were married. Although now that I think about it, doing it before you get married sounds like a much better idea. Or are you planning to just lie and tell them you’re married? Not that it matters to me.”

Slowly he asked her, “Why would I need to be married?”

“Because…” That gave her pause. He wanted to go on the Explorer’s Journey and he didn’t know? She narrowed her eyes. Feeling very shrewd, she inquired, “You don’t know what the Explorer’s Journey is, do you?”

He just looked at her for a long moment.

“You don’t!” she exclaimed. “I can tell you don’t.” Now this was getting interesting. Zoë advanced on him, her eyes wide with curiosity. “Why do you want to go if you don’t know what it is? Is your girlfriend making you go?”

“I don’t have a girlfriend,” he said reluctantly.

Yes! Zoë felt like doing happy dances. She refrained. But she felt the triumph in her heart. She wasn’t wrong about him! Single, single, single!

But if it wasn’t for a relationship, then why did he want to go? “Is it for work? You have to go for like, official police reasons?”

“No.” Other than that, he kept his mouth shut. His lips looked even more intriguing pressed together like that.

Zoë was nothing if not persistent when it came to mysteries and puzzles. She drew a little closer. “You don’t think I’m going to hand over my tickets unless you tell me why you need to go, do you?”

“I’m not at liberty to discuss this with you,” he said tersely. “And you said tickets, plural. I only need one.”

“Well, you certainly can’t go by yourself.” All by his lonesome? Mr. Cute Cop hadn’t done his homework, had he? She tapped the ticket packet against her chin.

“Why exactly is it a problem if I go by myself?” he asked. He was starting to sound a little testy. “What were you talking about before, about having to be married, or taking a girlfriend? What is this all about? What kind of exploration are we talking? North Pole? Mount Saint Helen’s? What?”

“Forgive me,” she said thoughtfully, looking him up and down, “but you don’t seem like the explorer type.”

“Neither do you.”

She shrugged, not at all concerned. “Are you going to tell me why you want to go? Or am I going to hold on to my tickets and my explanation of just what exactly the Explorer’s Journey is?”

Finally he muttered, “It’s none of your business, but the truth is… I have to find someone. I have reason to believe she’ll be on this tour.”

“She? So you have to find a woman.” Zoë was very close now, looking right up into his face, and she found this all fascinating. Her mind was working a mile a minute, considering possibilities. Not married. No girlfriend. Dying to go on the Explorer’s Journey to find a particular woman. “Is she your ex-girlfriend or something? She dumped you, hooked up with some other guy, got married, and now she’s going on the Explorer’s Journey with him. And you want to follow her. Why? Are you stalking her? Maybe you think you can get her away from the other guy? Or are you just torturing yourself?”

“You’re giving me a headache,” he said between clenched teeth.

“Oh, c’mon.” She jiggled his elbow. “Stalker? Win her back? Torment yourself?”

“None of the above. And why do you care?” he asked darkly. “I need to find her. She may be on this tour. That’s it.”

“Well, you can’t go by yourself.”

“Why not?” he snapped.

Zoë beamed up at him. “Because…if you must know…” She let her voice trail off. She was kind of enjoying letting him dangle now that she knew he was single. He was so very cute and his impatience only made him cuter somehow.

“Yes?” he prompted.

“Okay, okay. I guess you don’t watch Oprah, do you? Because the Explorer’s Journey has been all over Oprah. How to describe it?” She bit her lip. “Hmmm… I guess the closest I can come is to say it’s a kind of a combination of group therapy and a honeymoon.”

His eyebrows arched. “Group therapy? Honeymoon?”

Taking in his expression, she said slyly, “That’s right. And let me tell you, Jake, I can’t see you enjoying either all by yourself.”

He recovered quickly. “Yeah, but…somebody must go solo on this thing.” He sent her a quick glance. “People break up all the time. But, hey, they already paid the money, so why shouldn’t one of them go ahead and take the vacation? Like you. You broke up with your boyfriend, right? A few weeks ago.”

“He was my fiancé. Ex-fiancé. And that’s why I wanted to cancel my tickets. I sure wasn’t planning to go without him.”

Pacing farther away, over near the bookcase, Zoë shook her head, hoping they could change the subject. She did not need to be thinking about her lamented love life right now. She picked up the deck of tarot cards again, absently shuffling them.

His eyes measured her. Gruffly, in a way that told her it had nothing to do with the Explorer’s Journey, he asked, “So when were you supposed to get married?”

“Well…today.”

“Oh.” He lifted his shoulders in a very small shrug. “Sorry. That’s a tough break.”

“Yeah.” Zoë kept her mouth shut. There was no way she wanted to discuss that at this moment. Just don’t be nice about it, will you, Jake? Don’t be nice to me. I don’t want to lose control and melt all over you. Turning back, she asked, “So, Jake, tell me, are you going on this tour or not?”

He started to nod, but stopped suddenly. “That’s the second time you’ve called me Jake. But I never told you my name.”

Uh-oh. She covered quickly. “You must have.”

He shook his head.

“Wasn’t it on that identification thing next to your badge?” she tried.

“My ID was half a room away from you and you were upside down at the time.”

She bit her lip. “I have good eyesight.”

“Must be X-ray vision.” His expression was very guarded. “So how did you know my name?”

Zoë shrugged, shuffling the cards with more enthusiasm. “Listen, it doesn’t matter. The important thing is…oops.” She’d dropped a card again. How very strange. Just one card. And she knew before she turned it over what it would be.

Yep. Her breath caught in her throat. Two swans, hearts, flowers, a pair of tiny kissing cupids flying in the air.

“The damn two of hearts,” she muttered. This was getting ridiculous.

“What are you talking about?” he asked.

“The card, Jake. The card I keep pulling.” She held it up to show him the picture. “The two of hearts.”

“Fortune-telling cards?” He made a derisive snort. “You don’t believe in that junk, do you?” His tone grew more mocking. “Don’t tell me. It’s magic. That’s how you knew my name. You read it off one of your cards.”

“Don’t be absurd. I told you I saw it on your ID.” She should’ve been insulted. But she decided not to be. Okay, so he was misguided and cynical. But he would learn. She had faith. She’d dealt herself the True Love card. She’d felt the connection between them. Didn’t she feel this very minute that she could see right through him, clear to his heart?

Well, yeah, but…yikes. Even for her, this was taking a leap. He was self-righteous, he was way too honest, he had no apparent sense of humor, and he was…big. Very big.

Zoë chewed on a nail as she considered exactly what she was proposing. Nuttier than a fruitcake. Not likely to impress Jake.

But she was who she was. And Zoë Kidd was not afraid to take a risk. After all, how bad could it be? She’d expected to be going on this trip, anyway. In fact, she’d been looking forward to it. Meditation. Deep thinking. Personal growth. Surely she could do those things, make a break with the past, move on, and learn to be a better person, even if Jake was along. Even if he didn’t seem likely to be cooperative.

She sent him a quick glance. Okay, so he clearly wasn’t the meditation-and-deep-thoughts type. And he was more than a little intimidating, with that glower and the sizzle of sensuality she couldn’t ignore.

“Oh, yeah. That,” she said under her breath. “If I went along, what would I do about that?”

“What did you say?”

But she didn’t answer, still speculating on this wild idea. Could she really do this?

The eyes, the shoulders, the body that looked hard and hot in all the right places…and those lips. A girl could get lost in those lips for a long, long time. Could she not do this?

If he was intimidating, he was also yummy, no two ways about it. Yummy in a once-in-a-lifetime way. Although it seemed unlikely, he might just be her True Love. That idea made her stomach flutter again, but she squashed the fear. Maybe she wasn’t considering this as a selfish path to True Love. Maybe it was because he was on some sort of mission that she could help with.

Good for her, good for him.

She could no longer ignore the fact that her intuition was pushing her in his direction. Hard.

She mashed together every ounce of courage she could muster. “How badly do you want to go on this trip?”

“I have to go,” he said flatly. “Just name your price and I’ll buy.”

“But you only want one of my tickets.” She moved closer, waving the two of hearts. “And what will I do with the other one?”

He shrugged. “If you’ll only sell them together, then I’ll buy both and toss one.”

All in a rush, she said, “I’ll let you buy Wylie’s. But I’m keeping mine. I want to use it.”

A half smile curved his adorable lips. “You want to use it, huh?” he asked dryly. “For what?”

Zoë smiled. The True Love card felt hot against her palms as she pressed it between both hands. “If you want to go, Jake, you’ll need a partner. So I’m going with you.”




3


JAKE LAUGHED. “Yeah, right. Like that’s going to happen.”

But the feisty little redhead wasn’t giving in. He could tell that by the determined look on her face. Just his luck. He needed entry into this tour group, there was only one person with an entry pass available, and she turned out to be a Grade-A flake, doing some kind of goofy acrobatics half-dressed in a sweltering, unlocked apartment, burning a boatload of candles that smelled suspiciously like marijuana, waving fortune-telling cards around, and refusing to hand over her ticket to a trip she didn’t want to make, anyway. And then there were her clothes.

Okay, at least he’d seen enough of her by now to be about ninety percent sure she wasn’t “Toni,” the object of his search. He’d checked out her feet and legs, and she didn’t match. No toe rings, no sparkly sandals, plus her feet looked a lot smaller than the ones in the picture.

He’d checked out a lot more than her feet.

He’d walked in on a truly delectable view of her frisky little bottom pointed his way, and then she’d turned around and given him a gander at her front side, which made a wet–T-shirt contest look tame. He was a guy, okay? Maybe an in-control, by-the-book guy, but still a guy. When small, round, perfectly shaped breasts were presented right in front of him, covered only by one layer of slick, wet fabric, he couldn’t look away. His mouth watered again just thinking about it.

She didn’t seem to be at all aware that her clothing—or lack thereof—was downright provocative. She did seem to be aware that he was aware, however.

Or maybe it was just the ungodly temperature in the apartment making them both so hot and bothered. He ran a hand through his hair. He had no idea what was happening here, except that it was rapidly getting out of control. All he could think about was getting his hands on her tantalizing curves.

Time to stop that right then and there. Time to get back on track.

“I’ll buy both tickets,” he announced, reaching for his checkbook. This was on his father’s tab, after all. What difference did it make how much he spent? And the sooner he disposed of this, the sooner he would be rid of Zoë Kidd.

“Oh, no, you won’t!” she shot back with enough fire to make him want to spank her. Or kiss her. Or both. “I’ll let you buy one. But you don’t get to tell me what to do with my other ticket.”

“Zoë, I—”

“Nope. Discussion over.” He started to advance on her, but she held up a hand. “Don’t think you can change my mind. If you want to go, it’s my way or the highway.”

“I hate it when people say that.” Her way or the highway. He had six or seven inches and at least fifty pounds on her and she was bossing him around. But she had the ticket.

She crossed her arms over her breasts, thankfully blocking his view for a little while, and gave him the most bullheaded look he’d ever seen in his life. Considering the family he came from, that was saying something. “Here’s the deal. We need to be at O’Hare by ten in the morning. So you’ll need to pick me up by eight, just to be sure. Rush-hour traffic, you know.” She marched back over to her desk, rooting around for a second and coming up with an envelope with a big “EJ”—Explorer’s Journey—logo on the outside. “The instructions are in here about what to pack.”

“Where exactly—” he began, but she cut him off, yanking out a sheet of paper and handing it over.

“I’ll give you the ticket and the rest of the details in the morning. Oh, and be sure to leave the gun at home. They won’t let you keep it, anyway. Bad karma.”

“It varies from state to state whether I could bring it, and since I don’t know where…” He gave her a wary look, not at all liking how this was starting to sound. Did she say karma?

This was not turning out well. There was something very screwy about Zoë Kidd. Cute, pushy and screwy. His least favorite kind of woman.

And he sure as heck didn’t want to be stuck with her all the way to wherever it was they were going. He sent her one more glance, noting that she was smiling, which was pretty frightening. Shaking his head, Jake turned to leave.

“See you tomorrow, partner,” she called out.

“We’re not partners,” he shot back. “We’re going on the same tour. But separately. Got it?”

She just kept beaming at him. “We can sort it out tomorrow.”

Jake strode through the door without looking back. Let her have her small victories tonight. Once she handed over his ticket in the morning, there was nothing she could do to him.

“If she insists on tagging along,” he said under his breath, “it’s not like we’ll be attached at the hip. I’ll stay as far away as possible.”

“Don’t be late!” she yelled behind him.

But he just shook his head and got out of there before Zoë Kidd did any more damage to his psyche.

JAKE WAS SOMEWHAT CHEERED up by the packing list. Please leave valuable jewelry, watches, etc., at home. You won’t need much in the way of clothing, it continued, since we provide all that for you. You may also choose one special item of personal significance, like a stuffed animal or a keepsake. That struck him as fairly goofy, but even goofier was the fact that he already knew what Zoë would bring. It would definitely be that stupid tarot card she kept clutching last night, looking as if she was going to kiss it or cry over it.

As he put the last of his things in his duffel bag, Jake pressed his lips into a disapproving line. He’d busted a fortune-teller once. Some loser from the suburbs had paid big bucks to a self-proclaimed “mystic healer” in Old Town to get a curse lifted. And then, when the loser’s luck at the track didn’t change, the guy had proceeded back to Old Town to try to choke his money out of the mystic healer. After which said healer had cracked him over the head with her crystal ball. When Jake came in to break up the fight, the lady told him he was cursed now, too. Yeah, right. If Zoë was into that stuff, she was more seriously demented than he thought. Which was another reason to steer clear.

Hanging on firmly to that idea, he cast his mind over the packing list, one item at a time, as he drove up Lake Shore Drive, heading north to pick up Zoë. After all, he was a cop. He could look at evidence and draw conclusions, couldn’t he?

First off, there had been nothing in the papers about passports or foreign currency, so they must be staying in the country at least. No hiking boots, no special equipment. And no mention of parkas or warm boots. So maybe it was somewhere warm.

“Let it be Palm Springs,” he said as he pulled up in front of Zoë’s building. “Or Hilton Head. Someplace with sand and ocean. A golf course. Scuba diving.”

Of course, if he had his druthers, he would be headed to a plain old lake full of trout, with a fishing pole, some bait…and no Zoë.

He frowned. How had she described this trip? A honeymoon crossed with group therapy. Sounded ridiculous. Like Club Med for neurotic people who wanted to whine about their rotten childhoods in between cocktails, parasailing and heavy doses of honeymoon sex.

“Aw, jeez.” That was one wrinkle he hadn’t considered. Accommodations. He certainly had no intention of getting close enough to Zoë to have sex be any kind of a problem, but a honeymoon suite might be awkward. He could just see Zoë insisting they share the bed. We won’t touch, she would say. You paid half. It’s only fair.

Sharing a bed? With Zoë Kidd? Jake gritted his teeth.

Yeah, well, maybe the accommodations would be awkward, but not impossible. Surely he could sleep on the sofa for a few days. He had a momentary vision of Zoë traipsing around in her undies or her clingy, skimpy exercise wear, all wet with sweat…

Maybe he could sleep on the beach.

He smacked a hand into the steering wheel. Whatever it took, whatever the problems, he would get around them. Because he had no intention of sharing a room—or a bed—with Zoë Kidd.

He glanced up at her windows, on the second floor above a New Age shop that he seriously suspected of selling drug paraphernalia. “She’s screwy all right. Living above a head shop and leaving her door wide-open.”

Although he was prepared to go up to get her, he didn’t need to. She ran out the minute he pulled up, and he decided he at least had to admire her enthusiasm, especially at this hour of the morning. It might be well before eight, but she was already perky and ready, wearing some kind of soft, low-rise pants that exposed her belly button, a white peasant top with embroidery on it, and flat shoes that made a flapping noise as she ran out to the car. Presentable. And a heck of a lot more clothes than last night, thank goodness. Plus there was the added grace that this morning she was dry. His body still wasn’t recovered from the long, long cold shower he’d taken when he got home.

“Hi there,” she said happily, dropping a small bag in the back seat of his old Ford and hopping into the front seat next to him.

“Have you got the tickets?” he asked.

“Don’t waste time saying good-morning or anything.”

“I won’t.”

“So you’re not a morning person, is that it?” she said sympathetically.

Somebody honked at him, trying to get him to leave his parking space. He ignored it. “Do you have the tickets?” he asked again.

“Yes, sir,” she answered smartly, making fun of him all the way. She dug into the goofy straw purse she was carrying and produced the same envelope he’d seen last night.

“I want mine now,” he told her. “Hand it over.”

“Nope. I can’t. There’s just one pass for both of us.” She grinned, holding up a square yellow laminated card with “Your Ticket to Exploration” and “Couple Confirmed” stamped on it. “We have to enter the program two by two. Like Noah’s ark.”

This just kept getting worse and worse. As he pulled out into traffic and headed toward the expressway, he asked darkly, “They don’t shackle us together or anything, do they?”

Her smile widened. “No, but they might if we asked nicely.”

Jake groaned. Undertaking a ridiculous journey with a chirpy morning person was bad enough, but one with a body that wouldn’t quit and a habit of sticking it way too close to him—and now, bringing up shackles, as in handcuffs, not the way he usually thought of them, on a perp headed for jail, but instead as something to do with brass beds and naughty games—it was a nightmare.

“I was kidding,” she assured him, patting his hand where it lay on the steering wheel. He tamped down the impulse to jerk his hand away. She added casually, “I’m not into that kind of thing. I believe in free, unfettered sex where you can move around.”

Which was way more information than he needed. Way more. “I want one thing clear,” he announced. “We may be going in on the same pass, but we are going separately. There’s you.” With his left hand on one side of the wheel, he slid his right to the total opposite edge. “And then there’s me. No us. Got it?”

She made some sort of noncommittal noise he took as a yes. Purposely not looking at her or her body, Jake tried to keep conversation to a minimum on the way to the airport. But damned if she didn’t ask questions nonstop.

“So you’re a cop. How long have you been doing that?” she opened with. “Do you like it?”

“Eight years. I like it fine.” He kept his eyes on the car in front of him. Road repair. Traffic slow down. Not paying attention to Zoë. Not at all.

“And what do you do? Do you pound a beat?” she asked, scooting a little closer. “Is that what they call it?”

“A beat, yeah, some people call it that. But that’s not what I do.” He didn’t even glance her way. “Put on your seat belt.”

“All right, all right.”

If she interrogated all the men she met this way, it was no wonder she was taking her honeymoon trip solo. Except she wasn’t. He was there. Tortured, hog-tied, provoked…but he was along for the ride.

“So what do you do?” she prompted, safely fastening herself in. “Since you’re not pounding a beat, I mean.”

“I’m a sergeant,” he said gruffly. “And a supervisor for tactical teams.” He held up a hand. “And before you ask, tactical teams keep an eye on criminal activity in the district. Mostly undercover, looking for burglaries, gangs, narcotics, syndicates moving in, anything like that. We gather info, put two and two together, watch for patterns.”

“Cool. And does this trip have something to do with your job?” she asked, turning practically sideways inside her shoulder harness so that she could look at him more directly. “This woman you’re looking for, is she related to gangs or drugs or something?”

“No.”

“Is she dangerous? Like, armed and dangerous? Maybe a fugitive from justice?”

He cracked a smile. “You’ve been watching too much TV.”

“So is she a fugitive?”

“No,” he allowed. “Not as far as I know.” That was the truth, wasn’t it?

“Good,” she put in, relaxing into her seat. “I mean, I’m up for some excitement while we look for her, but nothing involving bodily harm.”

“While we look for her? You’re not looking. I am.”

But she didn’t react or respond to that observation. “You still haven’t said what you want with her.” She waited. “Well?”

He’d learned one thing over the years. Just because someone asked you a question didn’t mean you had to answer it. He didn’t.

“So you’re not going to tell me?”

“Nope,” he returned.

“Not even a hint?”

“Look, Zoë, this isn’t a game,” he said sharply. “It isn’t a mission, it isn’t a date, it isn’t Twenty Questions, and I’m not going to tell you anything, so you might as well stop asking.”

Okay, so he was being a little meaner than he ought to. He frowned, trying to decide whether he should be nicer, because, after all, he still needed that damn ticket. But then he hazarded a glance her way and caught the look on her face. What the…?

Her feelings weren’t hurt. In fact, she looked…turnedon. Oh, no.

Curiosity sparkled in her pretty green eyes, and her expressive features were rapt with interest as she leaned his way. Big mistake. His close-mouthed approach had created a monster.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asked, as if he didn’t know.

He could see the wheels turning, and the hint of color that tinged her cheeks. She started to answer, changed her mind, got even rosier and finally said, “I’m finding all this quite fascinating.”

What was she talking about? Him? The hunt for Toni, which she wasn’t even in on? “What exactly do you find fascinating?”

“Well, this trip. Yesterday I thought I would be bumming around, same old, same old, and today, here I am, on a trip into the unknown.” She was positively beaming over there. “I’m stoked. How about you?”

“Not so much.”

“Oh, come on. It will be great. Relaxing, you know.”

Jake angled his chin to the side window. “Relaxing? Around you? I don’t think so,” he said under his breath.

But Zoë was moving on. Carefully she declared, “Jake, yesterday… I just feel it’s only right to tell you. Yesterday, I felt some sort of heightened connection between us. I think you felt it, too.” When he didn’t respond, she prompted, “Yes?”

“No.”

“Yes, you did.”

He shouldn’t have looked over at her, but it was too late now. She was smiling. You could say whatever you wanted, but there was no denying that Zoë had a spectacular smile, all bright and shiny, with just a hint of mischief. It mixed innocence and heat in a way he’d never really experienced, like she was the girl next door who would open that door and invite you in to play Strip Twister.

Yeah, Jake, great image. He needed to keep a wide berth between Zoë and any game where you ended up naked.

He glanced back at her. She was still smiling that saucy Strip-Twister smile. The girl was a menace.

And now she was on about some kind of connection between the two of them. What did she mean by that? The parlor trick of pulling his name out of thin air? Or the physical thing, where he kept drooling on her and she kept sniffing around him?

Jake figured the better part of valor was denial. “I did not feel any connection,” he contended.

“Pooh.”

“I’ve never met anyone who used the word ‘pooh’.”

Ignoring that comment, she hitched her legs up on the seat, which was tough to do inside the seat belt, but she seemed to be a very limber girl. Bad thought, Jake. Don’t go there.

“So, Jake, tell me. Did you always know you wanted to be a policeman? Do you have to go to school for that?”

If he told her about his family and his training and all that boring stuff, at least it would keep her quiet and his mind busy the rest of the way to the airport. Talking about three generations of Calhouns in the Chicago Police Department was miles away from Strip Twister.

It wasn’t until he parked his car in the lot at O’Hare that he realized how quickly the time had passed and how much he’d talked about himself. Who needed bright lights and rubber hoses? Zoë had just worked more out of him than most trained interviewers got out of suspects, especially closemouthed suspects like him, and she didn’t even appear to be trying that hard. It was not a comforting thought.

“Which airline?” he asked, as they toted their bags and navigated their way to the terminal.

“None.”

“None?” He held the elevator door for her. “What do you mean, none?”

“It’s a bus,” she said helpfully. “We leave from the bus terminal. It’s in the instructions. There’s supposed to be a red line on the floor and it goes right to the bus terminal.”

“There was nothing about a bus in the instructions you gave me,” he retorted. “Where the hell are we headed, anyway? Where can you get by bus?”

“Wisconsin.”

“Wisconsin?” But that’s where he was supposed to be right now, with his brothers, at the lake cabin. “Why can’t we just drive ourselves?”

“It’s all part of the program,” she said patiently. “You’re supposed to become a part of the group, plus you make a commitment for the whole deal. Like, once you get on that bus, there’s no going back.”

Just when he thought things were as bad as they could get, Zoë kept proving him wrong. “I was hoping for someplace a little more interesting, as long as I had to…”

Be on this idiotic tour. He didn’t say that. But his visions of golf courses and scuba diving vanished. This sounded more like summer camp. They’d probably be tying knots and weaving flyswatters out of newspaper.

The rest of the way to the bus terminal, up escalators and down and around long corridors, she kept telling him not to be so grumpy and he kept wanting details she wasn’t providing, while they both held their voices down so as not to attract too much attention from the people around them.

“Snap out of it, Jake. You’re lucky you have me.”

He wasn’t feeling lucky. “Is there anything else you haven’t told me?” he demanded. “Like the fact that this program you keep referring to is for recovering substance abusers or a bunch of mopes avoiding jail time by picking up litter in Wisconsin?”

“I told you, it’s for newlyweds.” Zoë rolled her eyes. “Quit being a cop for a minute, will you?”

“I’m not being a cop. You’re being evasive,” he contended. “You held back the bus info and the little detail that we were going to Wisconsin.”

“You didn’t tell me that our mode of transportation or the specific location made a difference to you,” she said logically. “You were very adamant that you wanted to go on the Explorer’s Journey and how or where didn’t matter.”





Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Получить полную версию книги.


Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/julie-kistler/hot-prospect/) на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.