Книга - An Angel In Stone

An Angel In Stone
Peggy Nicholson


Mills & Boon Silhouette
She's equally comfortable in silk and heels or khakis and boots–but it's Raine Ashaway's sheer nerve and gut instinct that have made her a name in the dinosaur hunting world. Her family's famous archaeological firm, Ashaway All, hasn't hurt, either.Until Raine is thrust into a mysterious contest for a priceless opal fossil and the competition seems as intent on destroying her family name as he does beating her to the bones. Raine's not about to let the sexy, deceptive man known as Kincade win this round. But when the game turns deadly, the two rivals might just have to work together or lose everything, including their lives….









A Tyrannosaurus rex tooth made entirely of fire opal?


Opalized fossils were Raine’s professional specialty—and her personal obsession.



“Let’s throw a little light on this.” Cade produced a penlight from an inner pocket and flicked it on.



Coruscating with green and pink flames, then glimmers of coppery gold, the tooth flamed as Cade played the light over it.



Lia held the tooth up, the gently curved fang nearly twice as long as her hand. “Would you like to buy this?”



Cade, Raine’s professional rival, laughed under his breath, then glanced ironically at Raine—and held her gaze.



You against me!




Dear Reader,



June marks the end of the first full year of Silhouette Bombshell, and we’re proud to tell you our lineup is strong, suspenseful and hotter than ever! As the summer takes hold, grab your gear and some Bombshell books and head out for some R & R. Let us entertain you!



Meet Captain Katherine Kane. When she uncovers a weapons cache and a dangerous criminal thought to be behind bars, this intrepid heroine gets the help she needs from an unlikely source, in beloved military-thriller author Vicki Hinze’s riveting new novel in the WAR GAMES miniseries, Double Vision.



Don’t miss the incredible finale to our popular ATHENA FORCE continuity series. A legal attaché is trapped when insurgents take over a foreign capitol building—and she’ll go head to head with the canny rebel leader to rescue hostages, stop the rebel troops and avert disaster, in Checkmate by Doranna Durgin.



Silhouette Intimate Moments author Maggie Price brings her exciting miniseries LINE OF DUTY to Bombshell with Trigger Effect, in which a forensic statement analyst brings criminals down by their words alone—much to the dismay of one know-it-all homicide detective.



And you’ll love author Peggy Nicholson’s feisty heroine, Raine Ashaway, in An Angel in Stone, the first in THE BONE HUNTERS miniseries. Raine’s after a priceless opal dinosaur fossil—and to get it, she’ll have to outwit and outrun not just her sexy competition but a cunning killer!



Enjoy all four fabulous reads and when you’re done, please send your comments to my attention, c/o Silhouette Books, 233 Broadway, Ste. 1001, New York, NY 10279.



Best wishes






Natashya Wilson

Associate Senior Editor, Silhouette Bombshell




An Angel in Stone

Peggy Nicholson







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




PEGGY NICHOLSON


grew up in Texas with plans to be an astronaut, a jockey or a wild animal collector. Instead she majored in art at Brown University in Rhode Island then restored and lived aboard a 1920s wooden sailboat for ten years. She has worked as a high school art teacher, a chef to the country’s crankiest nonagenarian millionaire, a waitress in an oyster bar and a full-time author. Her interests include antique rose gardening, Korat cats, ethnic cooking, offshore sailing and—but naturally!—reading romances. She says, “The best thing about writing is that, in the midst of life’s worst pratfalls and disasters, I can always say, ‘Wow, what a story this’ll make!’” You can write to Peggy at P.O. Box 675, Newport, RI 02840.


This one’s for Jimmy, James Grimes, little brother grown big—King of the Dinos back then; King of the Road now. All the hugs in the world!

And with infinite gratitude to Paula Eykelhof, for much wisdom, forbearance as needed and many a smile.




Contents


Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Epilogue




Prologue


10:00 p.m. September 23

P olice horses ought to come equipped with sirens. Galloping up West 79th Street in Manhattan, Raine found the heavy evening traffic was slowing her down. In the taxi ahead, the passengers turned around to gape and point at the horse and rider. Okay, so she wasn’t wearing much more than a swathe of red silk, a red thong bikini and red wedge-heel sandals. Next time I dress for a black-tie gala, I’ll choose jodhpurs, she promised them grimly. Now will you for Pete’s sake get outta our way? This is an emergency!

They were too busy staring. Now the cabbie had turned, as well. His brake lights stuttered.

“Blasted rubberneckers!” She reined the bay onto the sidewalk and kept going.

Up ahead, an awning stretched from the raised entrance of a swank co-op to the curb. A uniformed doorman ambled down its crimson carpet. “Coming through!” Raine cried, ducking to lay her cheek alongside the bay’s hot neck.

“Hey!” The doorman stumbled backward and sat down hard on the co-op steps. “What the hell d’you think you’re—”

“Call the cops! Over on 80th Street! Need ’em NOW!”

“You better believe I’ll call ’em, blondie! And when they catch up with you—”

But Raine was peering ahead to the next awning. “Look out! Coming through!”

Not exactly the way she’d envisioned this evening. Cocktails, they’d said. Then dinner, after which she’d make a short speech—that was the worst ordeal she’d figured on facing tonight. Then they’d hold the auction, and her half of the bargain would be fulfilled. To celebrate, she’d planned on taking a nice walk home from the museum by moonlight.

As they neared the intersection with Amsterdam, she slowed the horse. “Easy, sweetie.” No sense wiping out, turning the corner.

Hooves clattering on concrete, they wheeled right—and bore down on a woman, who stood, peering intently into a shop window. A leash stretched from her lax hand all the way across the sidewalk to the curb, where a Scottie dog was equally absorbed in anointing a lamppost. “Drop it!” Raine called, waving the pistol she held at the leash. “Drop it now!”

The woman whirled, shrieked, and raised both her hands in surrender.

“What? No, I don’t mean—Oh, never mind! Call the police, would you?” Holding her horse to a controlled canter, Raine swept past the packed tables of a sidewalk café. Forks froze halfway to rounding mouths.

But at last, there ahead lay the crossing of West 80th and Amsterdam. The bay shied violently as a man came staggering around the corner building. “Gun! Gun! He’s gotta gun!”

Well, that sure wasn’t firecrackers she could hear popping now, above the traffic noise. Sidestepping and snorting, the bay danced around the corner as Raine surveyed the scene.

A third of the way down the block, an SUV had been abandoned. Its back bumper was crumpled against the flank of a parked car; its passenger door swung wide.

Then beyond that—she gasped in relief. Trenton was still alive! Kneeling midstreet, the big man swayed with exhaustion, while his captor ranted and raved above him. Spinning to face the curb, the gunman took aim at the nearest parked car—or somebody sheltered behind it?

Bullets flew, smashing glass, punching through sheet metal. She couldn’t see Kincade, but he must be the shooter’s target. So he was still in the game, hanging tough.

“Distract him for me just a minute longer?” Raine prayed, as she tucked her gun into the NYPD saddlebag. No way could she hope to make a precision shot at a full-tilt gallop, and she sure didn’t want to accidentally shoot Trenton.

Raine crouched over the bay’s withers and tapped his ribs with her heels. “Sweetie, let’s take him down.”




Chapter 1


8:30 p.m. September 23

F ramed by the murderous claws of the Allosaurus, the man stood. Looking at her.

Whoa. The hairs stirred at the nape of Raine Ashaway’s neck. Here was something…different. His impeccable black dinner suit fit in with this glitzy Manhattan crowd, but his utter stillness…

“See somebody you know?” inquired Joel Whittaker. An assistant fund-raiser for the Manhattan Museum of Natural History, he’d been assigned to smooth her path through the evening’s gala. It was Joel’s job to see she met the right people and stroked the right egos.

“No-o. But who is that guy? He sure seems to know me.”

Joel scanned the drifting guests on the far side of the museum’s most famous dinosaur exhibit. “Which one, that oh-so-distinguished blond to the left of that fabulous diamond choker?”

“No, no. Mr. Tall, Dark and Forgot-how-to-smile. See the woman with the ruby earrings? Just to her—arrr, he’s turned away.”

Which was just as well. They were neglecting their current prospect. Raine smothered a sigh. God, did she hate fund-raising! But the deal she’d cut with the museum had included her coming to New York to help make this event a success.

Judging by the sapphire necklace that draped Mrs. Lowell’s ample bosom and matched her blue hair, the old girl could afford to bid in the benefit auction tonight. Minimum opening bid was a million dollars.

“Now Raine,” said Mrs. Lowell, waving a plump little hand at the rearing dinosaur skeleton beneath which they stood. “Could a Brontosaurus really stand up on her hind legs like that?”

The MMNH’s most spectacular exhibit featured a five-story-tall mother Barosaurus rearing to defend her baby from the attack of an Allosaurus. The tableau was heart-stoppingly dramatic. It was the first thing a museumgoer saw, after pushing through the big bronze revolving entrance doors and into the echoing rotunda. The fossil castings stood on a knee-high dais that filled the middle of a hall the size of a basketball court. Raine adored the display.

“Well,” she said diplomatically, “if a circus elephant can stand on its hind legs with only a rope of a tail for balance, then why couldn’t she, with a forty-foot caboose for a cantilever?” Raine was more troubled by the fact that the baby dino, huddled behind his defending dam, stood astride her massive tail. In the coming battle, mama would surely whip her tail around, and her horse-size baby would go flying.

“And who do you think won the fight?” Mrs. Lowell worried.

Knowing what she did about Tyrannosaurus rex’s older, nimbler cousin, Raine hadn’t a doubt who’d triumphed. “Hard to say. She’d outweigh him four to one. If she lands a punch…”

“And what are you going to name our new dino, Mrs. Lowell, if you win the bidding tonight?” Joel broke in with a twinkle as he squeezed Raine’s elbow.

Mrs. Lowell chuckled. “I’ll name him Erwin Elwood, of course, after my dear papa. He was the fossil hunter in our family. My sister and I collected ostrich eggs, and my brother…”

Once Joel had eased them off through the crowd, Raine muttered, “Your patrons are bidding tonight for the right to name the specimen—this particular dinosaur that I gave you guys. You’ve got to make sure there’s no confusion.” She nodded at her distant find, the object of tonight’s auction.

In the far corner of the gallery, they’d stacked the six-foot-square wooden crates in which she’d packed the fossil bones, months ago in Patagonia, into a pleasing jumble. A giant child’s fallen tower of building blocks. Out of the top box thrust the massive skull of the beast—all that the museum’s preparators had had time to clean so far. He was as fearsome as his carnivorous cousin across the room, and more exotic with his horns. Couples stood below him, gazing up as they gestured earnestly with their champagne flutes.

“Somebody’s buying the right to name the museum’s example of the already named species—Carnotaurus. There’re going to be some hurt feelings if you don’t make the difference clear.”

“We will, we will, Raine. Now here’s someone you absolutely have to meet. Mr. Fish? Have you met Raine Ashaway of Ashaway All?”

“You’re the little lady that collected that ol’boy there?” demanded Mr. Fish, in a West Texas drawl.

Little lady? He barely came up to her chest! And he’d made his fortune in oil, Raine remembered.

“I picture me a bone hunter tromping around Patagonia, I see some kinda Indiana Jones. I don’t see a leggy blond filly,” Mr. Fish assured her.

“Picture it.” Raine showed her teeth as she reclaimed her hand. “And when I meet a Texas oil tycoon, I expect a ten-gallon hat—if not a twelve.”

Fish hooted as he rubbed his age-spotted dome. “My girl’s been workin’ on me. Alice says boots and a Stetson just don’t cut it with a tux. That if I want to step out on the town with her, then I better look sharp.”

“You name my dinosaur after Alice, and I bet she’ll let you wear whatever you like, Mr. Fish.”

“Might be worth a try,” the oilman allowed, his shrewd eyes crinkling.

“That’s the most complete Carnotaurus skeleton ever discovered,” Raine assured him. “Once she’s prepared and mounted, she’ll stand two-stories high. People will come from all over the world to ooh and ah over her.”

“Alice’d like that, all right.”

“There’s only one to compare her with,” Joel chimed in. “The T. rex Sue, at Chicago’s Field Museum. And when Sue was auctioned off at Sotheby’s, she went for almost eight and a half million.”

“That was to buy the entire dino, not the right to name it!” Raine hissed as they moved on, stopping to shake a hand here, or make a pitch there.

“True. But that was ten years ago. Think about inflation.”

Raine was thinking about what time it was. Half an hour max for cocktails, they’d told her, before they went in to a sit-down dinner, served in the Hall of African Mammals. The museum was charging twenty-five thousand a table. Then, after that pricey meal and before the auction, she’d promised to rev up the crowd. A short speech on My Adventures in Patagonia, more or less. She’d give the patrons more on the genuine thrill of making a major fossil find—and less on the choking dust, the constant gales, the scorpions that kept snuggling into everybody’s boots.

“Getting tired?” Joel asked.

“Hanging in there.”

She assured a prince of Wall Street that his brokerage could buy no finer marketing image for itself than a Carnotaurus. “That’s Latin for ‘meat-eating bull,’” she told him. “Your firm could style itself the top predator of the next bull market.”

“Dynamite pitch, but why’d you duck his invitation to dinner?” Joel grumbled as they drifted on. “His eyes just give me the shivers. So masterful!”

“I promised my sister Jaye that I’d check out her dig this weekend. She’s struck a major vein of amber in southern New Jersey, can you believe it? Besides…” If there was one thing Raine demanded in a man, it was competence in the natural world. Forget how he handled the bulls and bears of the stock exchange. She wanted a man who could deal with a water buffalo, or face down a grizzly. Her father had spoiled her for indoortypes forever.

“Well, I’d have dated him if he’d asked.”

“Then go back and chat him up. I’m doing fine on my own.”

“I…really shouldn’t. I’m supposed to take care of you.”

“So be a sweetheart and get me another drink. And take the looong way round, okay?”

Circling the island of battling dinos, Raine stopped for some girl talk. A fashion designer wanted to know where she’d gotten her stunning gown?

“Like it?” Raine smoothed her palms down the clinging sheath of red silk, with its intricate gold-thread patterns and its delicately gathered bodice. A split between the two halves of the front showed a slice of skin almost to her navel; it couldn’t be worn with a brassiere. But actually it was quite modest—all promise and wild surmise.

“It’s made from an antique sari. I managed a dig a few years back, in southern India. There’d been a drought there for years. We could give the men work, but I wanted to do something for the women of the village. I hired a young widow to do the camp mending, and it turned out she was a genius with a needle. I bought some silk and did a sketch and asked if she could sew me a simple dress? And she whipped up something I could have worn in Paris. So the other expedition women got envious and asked for clothes, and the next thing you knew, we realized—hey, this is a viable business.”

Raine had loaned Shoba and her two sisters the money to buy three sewing machines, her initial stock of fabric and a satellite-linked laptop. She’d connected her with a sharp marketing student at Parsons School of Design back in the States, plus a wonderful Web site designer. “This is Shoba’s latest design, which she’ll customize, of course, to size and material. She’s fast, utterly dependable and she can deliver in quantity. Here’s her e-mail address.”

As she drew the business card from a hidden pocket, Raine brushed the sheath of the knife strapped to her thigh. Weapons-grade plastic, so the museum’s metal detector had missed it. She’d been silly to wear it, she supposed. But the moon would be full tonight and she never got enough exercise, when she came to the city. After the fund-raiser, she meant to walk back to the firm’s apartment in the upper West Eighties. And if John Ashaway had taught his children anything, it was to be prepared. Always. For anything.

“Carpe diem!” was his credo. “Seize the day. Seize the moment. Seize the opportunity. Seize the damn carp. Live by your wits or die stupid.”

Smiling with the memory, Raine came back to the present—to find her gaze snagged by the same dark watcher. He must have circled the room as she had done; now they contemplated each other from reverse sides of the battling dinosaurs. Where had she seen him before?

And then the memory surfaced. That time in Wyoming when she was—what—twelve? She’d skipped out on her father’s dig, dreaming she’d top his discovery with one of her own. Up into the foothills she’d hiked, through a stand of trembling aspen.

The wind and the leafy commotion must have masked her steps as she rounded the bend in the trail. Hard to say who’d been more surprised, Raine or the young mountain lion coming down the path. He’d frozen with a big forepaw midair. Ye-es, that was what reminded her now. Here was that same coiled stillness—force interrupted, yet instantly available.

And the man’s amber eyes were just like the cat’s. Here it was again, total attention. She remembered the moment when attention had turned to intention. She’d been small for her age at twelve. She’d looked like lunch.

But being an Ashaway, she had pockets full of fossils. As the lion stalked closer, she’d lobbed a trilobite off his flank. He’d snarled, swerved—and kept on coming.

She’d had to sacrifice the best ammonite she’d ever found. Just as he gathered himself to spring, it struck him square on the nose. He’d shot straight up into the leaves in outraged astonishment. That gave her a moment to grab a fallen limb and charge him, shrieking like a banshee.

Her bluff would never have worked on a seasoned hunter. Wouldn’t work on this one, something told her. She gave him a slow smile. So here I am. What’s your intention?

He didn’t respond. A hand tipped in long red nails landed on his sleeve. With their eyes locked, Raine couldn’t see more of the woman. But he glanced down at those fingers, smiled wryly to himself—then turned aside.

Raine drew a breath, her first in a minute. What was that about?



So that…was Raine Ashaway.

Kincade supposed he’d seen photos before. The Ashaway All Web site contained expedition shots featuring various members of the family, as well as pictures of the dinosaur specimens they offered for sale. But he’d never seen this Ashaway without a wide-brimmed hat shading her vivid face. He hadn’t expected a huntress, with hair like moonbeams rippling on troubled water.

“Did you hear one word I said, Cade?” Amanda whatever-her-name-was fingered his lapel, as she pouted prettily.

“Nope.” Not that he’d have missed much. She’d latched on to him as soon as he’d arrived. He’d tolerated her prattling, because she made good cover. She let him appear to be mingling, while he studied his quarry.

“You’re almost…scary, when you look like that. What on earth are you thinking?” she teased.

He was thinking that vengeance might turn out to be more than a sworn duty. Taking Raine Ashaway down? That might also be a pleasure.




Chapter 2


“R aine-baby!”

Spinning, Raine found herself nose to nose with a ruby tie tack, and an expanse of white satin dinner jacket too wide to hug. “Trenton! What are you doing here?” She planted a kiss on his dimpled chin, which was as high as she could reach.

The sports world and his adoring fans knew him as Ten-ton Browne of the Pittsburgh Steelers. “There you are just strolling down the sidewalk—and WHAM! It’s like a big ol’ ten-ton safe falling out of the sky,” a sacked quarterback had once described their first encounter.

“Hey, that dig last year? I still dream about it. Stars so big I thought they gotta be flying saucers, and finding that Stegosaurus? What a kick! I’ve been collecting ever since.”

While recuperating from a knee injury, Trenton had signed up as a volunteer documentation assistant on an Ashaway dig in Montana. He’d caught the dinosaur-hunting bug, for which there was treatment, if no cure. But along with the bone-fever, he’d caught something much worse.

“I heard you were talking tonight ’bout Patagonia,” he rumbled in her ear as they strolled arm in arm toward the boxed Carnotaurus. “But I didn’t know if any of the rest of your family were…”

“Nobody else is coming tonight,” she said gently. “Jaye’s digging down in New Jersey, Gianna’s doing prep work back at headquarters. Ash is cursing and swearing and suffering through his paleontology doctorate at Stanford. And Dana?” Dana was all he wanted to hear about. “Dana’s excavating a fossil whale in Peru.”

“I see.” He heaved a gusty sigh. “Didn’t know she was out of the country. Guess that’s why she never returns my messages.”

“Mmmm.” That wasn’t why, but it wasn’t Raine’s place to tell him so.

“Well.” He sighed again and nodded up at the Carnotaurus. “That’s surely something you found there, Rainy. What d’you think? If I beat out all these fat cats and win the auction tonight, then I name your dino after Dana?”

Raine shook her head. “Don’t do it for that reason. The museum would love your contribution, but as for Dana…”

“Yeah…Yeah, I sorta thought not.” He pulled his lilac brocade tie through the enormous fingers of one hand, then the other. “Then I guess I oughta ask you this. Nothing’s worse than not knowing. Is it because I’m…” He made an oddly graceful gesture, taking in his massive black body.

“No. It is absolutely not that. You are prime husband and brother-in-law material—and considering your feather touch with a pickax? Dad would clasp you to his bosom, believe me.” Why couldn’t he have fallen for gentle Gianna? Another year or two and surely she’d be over Jack’s death. Ready to love again.

But Dana? It would be disloyal to tell him that Dana kept a tray of ice cubes, where other people stashed their hearts. “Dana doesn’t get…involved. Not with anyone.” From the day they’d found her at roughly age five, she’d been like that. Friendly—but friendly like a stray cat who’d move on if the food ran out. It was Raine’s guess that she wanted nobody irreplaceable in her life.

Raine left Trenton gazing glumly up at the Carnotaurus, and prowled on.

She hooked another flute of bubbly off a caterer’s tray, stopped to let a woman exclaim over her opal necklace.

“That is absolutely fabulous! Do you mind if I ask where you got it? I own a shop down in the Village, and I’m always on the lookout for—” She paused with a look of disappointment as Raine shook her head.

“It’s one of a kind, I’m afraid. I made it myself, over a period of years.” She touched the rough opals, strung together into a wide ragged sunburst, with bits of beach glass woven in for contrast. “Every time I find a new stone, I find someplace to fit it in.” Since precious and semiprecious stones were often uncovered during excavations, Ashaway All sold uncut gems as well as fossils. John Ashaway had encouraged each of his children to specialize in a particular mineral. Opals were Raine’s professional—and private—passion.

Circling toward the front of the gallery, Raine didn’t spot any opals. Still in this crowd there were plenty of other gems to admire. She saw a pair of tourmaline earrings she’d have to describe to Ash; that was his stone. Pearls galore, though Ashaway All didn’t deal in pearls. A man’s signet ring with a square-cut emerald that’d be the envy of a rajah.

“Raine, there you are!”

With an inward groan and an outer smile, she turned as Alden Eames, curator of vertebrate paleontology, caught her arm.

“Sorry to neglect you, darling, but I had to smooth some ruffled feathers. The security guard running the metal detector is an ass. Can you believe he was refusing entry to a cousin of the Kennedys? Some sort of steel plate in his leg from a skiing accident, I understand. But if these morons can’t distinguish between an honored guest and a mugger wandered in from the Park, then I say…”

He said it at length while Raine struggled not to yawn. To think that when she was seventeen Eames had bruised, if not broken, her heart! She’d met the rising young curator that summer when Ashaway All had shared a salvage dig with the Manhattan Museum of Natural History. They’d been granted three months to rescue as many bones as they could from a mass grave of hadrosaurs, discovered during construction of a dam in Venezuela. When the waters rose, the site would be submerged forever. During those months of fevered camaraderie, Raine had fallen hard for the bronzed and pith-helmeted young Ivy Leaguer. Though he was twelve years her senior, she’d taken him for her first lover.

With a teenager’s rosy optimism, she’d pictured them together forever, sharing bones, bliss and world-shaking scientific discoveries. But her dreams had shattered at expedition’s end, when she’d learned that—all the while—Eames had been engaged to a rich young socialite. His fiancée had stayed back in the States to plan their September wedding.

Still Raine had limped away from the experience with some valuable lessons. She’d learned to withhold her trust till a man had earned it. Learned also that polished charm was often the mask of selfishness, not a caring heart.

She startled now as Eames brushed a finger along her bare shoulder. “God, Raine. Have I told you yet that you’re twice as lovely as you were at seventeen? To think that we—”

“Let’s not, thank you. Let’s think about Ethiopia. I’ll be taking my usual crew, but I’ll scout for a site first, just me and a guide. Do you have any local connections you’d recommend?”

Raine hated to give up her Carnotaurus, but she was on the track of even bigger game. A richer prize.

The MMNH held a licence to dig in Ethiopia, but with the wars of the past decade, hadn’t dared exercise that right. But now there’d been another truce in the fighting, and Raine was ready to gamble this one would hold.

Apparently Eames was not.

So they’d traded, exchanging Raine’s sure thing—her neatly boxed Carnotaurus, perfect for a fund-raiser—for the museum’s wild card: the right to dig, with no guarantee that there’d be bones for the finding.

But, oh, if there were! Four years ago the shoulder blade of a gigantic new dinosaur had been unearthed in the Sudan, in the same geological stratum that was exposed in the gorge of the Blue Nile. Raine meant to be the first one in the world to bring home an entire specimen of Paralititan.

Given the right international auction, Ashaway All could sell a complete fossil skeleton for an easy five-million-dollar profit. Aside from the scientific notoriety, which was valuable in itself, the company could use a cash windfall. They’d taken some unexpected hits this past year. Lost three long-standing licenses to dig out West, that they never should have lost. Been outbid with several of their independent finders for specimens that once would have been theirs without question. Then Jaye had mounted an expensive amber-collecting expedition to Haiti that had come home empty-handed, when cholera broke out in the region. Add all those losses on to the breathtaking medical expenses of her father’s accident, and his attempts to recover…With an absent frown, Raine glanced beyond Eames’s shoulder—and blinked.

There he was yet again—Amber Eyes. Still keeping his distance. Still unsmiling. And still…attentive. So what do you want? If he was flirting, he’d get nowhere with her without showing some humor and warmth.

And if he wasn’t? Standing there like a tiger, peering through the bushes? Then—

“Miss Ashaway? Miss Raine Ashaway?”

One of the caterer’s tuxedoed staff loomed before her. He swung a silver tray of drinks under her nose.

“No, thanks. I’m all set.” She showed him her flute, still filled with icy bubbles.

“No, no, no, no. It is this! I was told to give you—”

She cocked her head as he pressed the small white envelope into her hand. An Indian accent, with its iambic inflection and hints of Britannia? “But who gave you this to—?”

He bowed, nodded emphatically and darted off through the crowd.

“What’s that about?” Eames murmured at her ear.

With a mystified shrug, Raine looked from the envelope—to her watcher across the room. From you?

His dark head dipped an inch in the barest of nods, the salute of a fencer at the first kiss of steel. He smiled at last—a white slash of teeth in a sun-darkened face—and turned away.

You, Raine concluded, ripping into the envelope.

On a square of folded paper, his message was penned in bold block letters.

I have a fossil of great rarity and interest for sale. If this beguiles you, then meet me in the middle of the Brooklyn Bridge at midnight.

So. This was business instead of pleasure. Or, at least, before pleasure, Raine told herself. But why the weird rendezvous? Why not discuss it now?

On the other hand, the museum was Eames’s home court, and she certainly didn’t need the curator drooling over her shoulder, while she tried to cut a deal. A fossil of great interest was, by definition, a bone of contention. Careers as well as fortunes rose and fell with paleontology’s great discoveries.

Consider me beguiled. She looked up to send that silent reply, but Amber Eyes was speaking to the same Indian with the tray. Something passed between their hands—a tip for the man’s trouble, no doubt.



“You would be Mr. Ken…Cade?” the waiter asked with a nervous gulp.

“Kincade. Who wants to know?”

“I was told to give you…this.” He thrust a small white rectangle into Kincade’s hand, then retreated through the crush.

Odd. Kincade inspected both front and back of the envelope, but there wasn’t a mark on it. Who knew he’d be here tonight? There’d been a guest list published in the museum’s newsletter, he supposed, and possibly in the Times, but—

“Who’s that from?” Amanda wondered at his elbow.

“That’s a lovely nose, sweetheart.” Likely the best that money could buy. “But as for sticking it in my business?” Cade dropped the unread note in his pocket as he took her by the arm. “Let’s find you another drink.” And somebody else to play with. He’d blown his cover back there anyway; Raine had noticed his interest.

But then, she must be used to men staring.

Even so, maybe it was time to take it up a notch. He hadn’t meant to meet her tonight, but he had a sudden urge to learn if her voice matched the rest of her. He’d ditch Amanda, and then—

Raine chanced to be looking up at the Allosaurus, when its head exploded.




Chapter 3


T he shot ricocheted off the stone wall with a vicious whine. A woman screamed, then stunned silence spread in widening ripples.

“Ladies and gentleman, touch a cell phone and you’re dead! I mean you, sir!” The gun cracked again. A man yelled and clutched at his shoulder. His phone clattered on the marble terrazzo.

“Hands on your head. Everybody! Now!”

By the metal detector, the guard lay in a boneless heap. In a beautifully tailored suit, the shooter stood before him. A Halloween mask concealed his face—ex–President Clinton, with a rubbery aw, shucks grin that didn’t match his commands.

He’d come in as a guest with the mask in his pocket, Raine assumed, then used either a knife or a Taser to secure the guard’s gun. Clinton blocked the main—eastern—entrance, the revolving doors that gave onto Central Park West.

Balancing her champagne flute on her head with both hands, she swung casually to the south. There was an exit in the center of each wall of this rectangular gallery.

But for this event each had been closed with its own set of pocket doors. These were cast bronze fit for a cathedral, each half of which had to weigh tons. Nothing to be hastily dived through at the best of times, and with a rubber-faced “Jimmy Carter” holding a pistol at the south exit, well, forget that line of retreat.

Jimmy had taken out a second security guard. This one was conscious, wriggling futilely against the nylon ties that cuffed his hands behind his back.

“All of you, move! Thataway, move! Take your hands off your head and you die. Move it!”

Amazing how quickly a self-satisfied crowd could be reduced to a docile herd. With shaky whispers, they shuffled in the direction their captors indicated with waving guns, till a smirking “George Bush” shunted them away from the northern doors.

At last everyone converged, trapped against an inner corner of the room.

A glass of perfectly good champagne on her head, and her mouth had gone dry as a stone. Relax, Raine warned herself. Focus. Danger either numbed the senses—or it sharpened them.

So…two Democrats, one Republican. She counted three gunmen in all. Bush stood fairly close to her left; Carter far off on the right. Clinton was clearly the boss. He stepped up onto the central dais and strode across it till he stopped by the baby Barosaurus. His roving gaze cowed the last terrified whispers to silence.

Could this be her watcher? If he had golden eyes, the mask’s exaggerated brow ridge shadowed their color. Raine studied the man’s shoulders. They didn’t seem quite as deliciously wide as she remembered. But how else to account for that aura of leashed danger she’d sensed, each time she’d met Amber Eyes’s gaze? At some instinctive level she’d known the man was a predator.

“Keep your hands on your head and kneel,” Clinton rasped. “You there.” He aimed his gun to Raine’s right—at Trenton. The linebacker towered over Mrs. Lowell, who looked as if she’d erupt any second. “Help the old bag down. Yeah, like that—now hands up! Move it, folks. A little cooperation and we’ll be out of here in no time. Just sit tight till the taxman gets to you, then give him everything you’ve got—your wallet, your jewels, your phone. And meanwhile, shut up over there!”

A hysterical sobbing was instantly hushed.

Jerk. Bully. Raine studied the distance from herself to the dais. Her knife was balanced for throwing, but Clinton stood beyond her outer limit of accuracy. Besides, kneeling on the hem of her ankle-length gown, she couldn’t reach her weapon discreetly. Make a note for Shoba. Next dress needs a side zipper for instant access.

But as for now…Could she really let these creeps take her opals? The necklace wasn’t worth a tenth of Mrs. Lowell’s sapphires, but Raine’s mother had helped her dig up its first stone when she was eight. It was one of the last things her mother had ever touched on this earth. How can I give it up?

Her eyes ranged over the crowd. Who else feels the same? Trenton? But no, the big man dropped his ruby tie tack in the bag he’d been handed, while Jimmy Carter covered him with his gun. Next he helped Mrs. Lowell unhook her necklace. Trenton might be deadly on the five-yard line, but he played games; he didn’t play for keeps.

Eames? The curator’s shoulders were hunched high around his ears. His elbows trembled like a fledgling’s bony wings. No help there.

A woman somewhere behind Raine pleaded that she couldn’t get it off! She couldn’t! A squeal of pain and Bush’s coarse chuckle ended the dispute.

“If you can’t remove your rings, ladies and gentlemen, that’s no problem,” soothed the man on the dais. “Jimmy Carter has the bolt cutters, if you need assistance.”

Joke, Raine told herself desperately. Maybe.

All right, if she couldn’t reach her knife, what did she have? John Ashaway had taught all his children self defense. Then when Trey had joined the firm, he’d honed their combat skills to an ex-SEAL’s satisfaction. Think. What would Trey do? The envelope she still gripped between two fingers was too small to roll into a weapon. She wore high wedge sandals, easy to run in, but without stilletto heels.

To her right came a muffled groan. Raine turned in time to see a blood-soaked man wobble, sag—his eyes rolled back in his head. His neighbor cursed and caught him—lowered him gently to the floor, to lie in a spreading, dark puddle.

The wounded one was the man who’d tried to phone for help, and his Samaritan—“Oh!” Raine cried aloud. Amber Eyes! So he wasn’t one of these brutes—wasn’t Clinton. Sorry! she apologized mentally.

He glared past her at the man on the dais. “This guy’s bleeding to death. Better let me take him out to the—”

“Shut up!” Clinton took aim on his forehead. “Hands back on your head!”

“Look, you don’t want him dead, either. At least let me—”

Clinton swung—blew the head off the baby Barosaurus—then turned his gun back on Amber Eyes. “Want the same? Keep talking.”

O-kay, that was the last straw. Though the Barosaurus was a casting whose head could be replaced, Raine doubted that Clinton knew it. For all this thug knew, he’d just smashed an irreplaceable fossil. A creature that had survived a hundred and forty million years to whisper its tale of mystery and awe: Behold! Dragons once walked this earth!

Any eight-year-old dinosaur expert could appreciate what a fabulous thing we’ve got here! But as for you, you know-nothing, money-grubbing Visigoth? That’s it. You and your sadistic buddies are going down.

And if she had an ally in the room, it was Amber Eyes. Trading glare for glare with the gunman, he knelt, bloodstained hands clasped on his head. The muscles in his craggy jaw jumped as he gritted his teeth. Even at a distance Raine could see his eyes darkening, like the lion’s as it readies to spring.

But wait for me. Jimmy Carter would reach Amber Eyes in another minute, and Bush was just now collecting Eames’s gold Rolex with an appreciative chuckle. Wait! Raine turned to beam her message.

And somehow Amber Eyes felt her gaze. As their eyes connected, his brows twitched. His scowl eased to a rueful grimace—he shaped her a kiss.

Got it! She ran the tip of her tongue along her upper lip, saw his grin start to flash—she turned to find George Bush looming above her.

“Hey, sweetcakes! Nice necklace.” His masked eyes oozed over her. “Nice…everything. Wanna hop in my sack?”

“Best weapon you’ve got is you’re a woman. They’ll always underestimate you,” Trey whispered down the years. “Use what you’ve got.”

And “carpe diem!” added her father. “Seize the day, the instant, seize the carp.”

Gut him.

Raine’s wineglass wobbled in her trembling hands—tipped. Champagne splashed over the opals; it poured down the front of her dress.

“OH!” she cried, in a stricken baby-doll voice. She wiped frantically at the drenched silk. “Oh, would you just look at—!” Her hand froze. She’d brushed the center slit aside. Her right breast thrust impudently through the gap, its nipple taut with adrenaline, flesh moistly glistening.

“Oh, baby!” chortled George, lurching closer. He stuffed his jewel bag under the elbow of his gun hand, to free up the other.

“Wuh oh!” she said in a ditzy half whisper. Tipping her head back, Raine shook her hair out on her bare shoulders.

She rounded her lips to a carnal “oh”, then circled them with her tongue. “You wouldn’t. You couldn’t…” She heaved a shuddering breath, almost a shimmy. “D-don’t you dare—”

In a graceful half swoon, she collapsed backward to the floor. The hand holding her flute hit the marble above her head. Glass tinkled as its fragile bowl shattered. “Don’t—” she whimpered “—touch…me.” She swung her legs to one side, then down, so she lay helplessly at full length, open and inviting. “Oh, don’t!”

Tell a man what to do and he’ll do the opposite every time. With a crude guffaw, Bush dropped to one knee beside her.

“Leave her alone!” shouted someone. It sounded like Amber Eyes.

“You put your filthy lips on me and I…I swear I’ll just die!” Raine drawled, southern belle in distress. Come on, George, lift your mask.

“Oh-ho, sugarbabe!” At her subliminal dare, his reaching fingers paused—then swerved to peel the rubber up and hook it above his big nose. Leaving only his greedy eyes masked.

“Picture every move before you make it,” whispered Trey at the back of her mind.

“Bush, get your ass back to business!” yelled Clinton from the dais.

“I’ll give you the biz, cupcake!” George swore, reaching for her with a blissful grin.

He had flaring hairy nostrils, and—thank God—he’d worn a tie. Raine half sat to meet him. “Ohhhh,” she moaned, her skin crawling as he palmed her breast.

Her left fingers hooked over his tie to pull their bodies closer, while with her right—she slipped the broken stem of her wineglass up his left nostril. An inch.

Then a second inch, gently. Deftly.

“Awgggh!” George gurgled. He’d gone stiff as a board. Behind his mask, his eyes showed a frantic ring of watering white.

” Now that I’ve got your attention?” crooned Raine against his cheek. “Make another sound, and I’ll shove this halfway through your tiny brain.”

“Get off her, you asshole!” Clinton yelled. “Save it for later!” From his vantage point, he was witnessing an assault, not a counterattack. Like most of his sex, he assumed a man on top was a man in control.

“For shame!” scolded a nearby woman.

“Somebody stop him!’ cried another.

Here came the hard part. “Now ni-ice and eaaasy, George, give me the gun,” Raine purred. Crunching her stomach muscles to stay in a half sit, she let go his tie. To discourage any bright ideas—she twiddled her glass spear, a quarter turn.

He let out a piggy squeal.

“Shhhh…Hush. Don’t move.” Her left hand walked up his right wrist. “Good. We don’t want me to slip, do we? No…there…thank you, I’ve got it.”

Pity she wasn’t a better shot, left-handed. Go for the trunk, she reminded herself as she aimed under George’s arm and squeezed the trigger.

Clinton yelled, clapped a hand to his thigh—and stumbled backward over the baby Barosaurus. Bones crackled and flew. A gun barked across the room. A hundred people surged to their feet and stampeded screaming for the exits.

“G’night, George.” Raine tapped the gun across his skull, precisely where Trey had taught her. Sweet dreams, minimal damage, he’d promised, and Raine could testify at least to the first half. She barely had time to withdraw her glass dagger as George collapsed with a weary moan.

“Offa me, loser!” As she wriggled out from under, she looked for Clinton. His gun, had he dropped it? But people were crawling across the dais, falling over each other and scrambling to their feet; she couldn’t spot him. Somebody blundered into a hind leg of the mama Barosaurus and Raine cringed, arms wrapped around her skull. If five stories of fossil came tumbling down!

The dino creaked overhead. Its forty-foot neck swayed perilously—then held. Raine’s heart settled back into her chest as she turned. Clinton, Clinton, come on! Surely somebody had nabbed him?

There was old Mrs. Lowell—walking, mind you, toward the exit, her back stiff with outrage. And there, Joel was all right; he stood astride the wounded man, protecting him from a trampling, yelling for a doctor. And—

Ah! The relief she felt made her hum in surprise. Amber Eyes rose lithely from a crouch; he’d been hog-tying Jimmy. Using both their ties, apparently. And why was it that a sexy man always became instantly twice as sexy when he stripped off his tie? Plus now his dark hair was irresistibly tousled. And that fiery okay, who’s next? glint in his eyes as he scanned the room. And the way he held Jimmy’s gun with a casual readiness along his thigh as he turned…Add up the whole package and you got just, “Rrrrowrrr,” Raine growled happily to herself—as their eyes connected.

With a slow sinful smile, he gave her a thumb’s-up. Then his gaze dropped—his grin widened. He stroked a forefinger down his chest.

What did he—? She glanced down. Oh! The blood boiling to her face, Raine rearranged her bodice. She looked up again with a laughing shrug. Hey, it worked, didn’t it?

“Rainy!” called a voice with aching urgency.




Chapter 4


R aine whirled—to see that someone had opened the western doors. Framed in the gap, a couple staggered. That was Trenton in the lead, and behind him, jabbing him in the kidney with a gun—

“Oh, rats!” If only she’d aimed higher! Clinton’s pantleg clung wetly to his skin. His right shoe had tracked a trail of bloody prints across the hall. “Stop or I’ll—!”

He glanced back with a rubbery grin. “Sure, bitch, go ahead! You get two for one!” Shoving Trenton around the corner, he limped into the darkness.

“Bastard!” she swore, stalking after him. From this angle her bullets would punch right through him and into his hostage.

Weaving around couples too stunned to run, stepping over a downed body, Raine reached the doorway—then yelped as an arm hooked around her waist. It yanked her back against muscled resilience, a delectable fragrance of bay rum and overheated male. She jabbed an elbow into a stomach soft as a chunk of granite. “Le’go, dammit, that’s a friend of mine!”

“Not so fast, Ashaway. You spoiled Clinton’s party. The man may hold a grudge.” Amber Eyes released her and sank to a crouch. He reached for an elegant red Prada pump that some woman had lost, held it around the corner—a shot sang out of the dark. He stood and showed her the sole, neatly drilled. “And he can shoot. Any idea where they’re headed?”

“The terrace!” she guessed. “Twenty yards to the right down this corridor, then he’ll turn left.”

“Give him a minute to limp to the corner. And then?”

“About eighty yards down another hallway, they’ll come to the northwest entrance.” Then out across a raised terrace, down some steps to the level of the park that surrounded the museum—and then whoever knew? Could a getaway car be waiting at the rear of the building?

“You winged him good. If we don’t push him, he might just bleed himself stupid and sleepy. Lie down for a nap.”

“Or he might keep moving, then shoot Trenton out of spite! Or keep him for a consolation prize.” The linebacker earned millions every year. If Clinton held him for ransom…“No way I’m risking that.” Raine gathered her gown up to midthigh and knotted the silk to keep it there.

“Umm…no?” Amber Eyes looked up from her legs. “Then give them thirty seconds more.” He switched his gun to his left hand and held out his right. “Meanwhile, it’s Kincade. Or Cade if you like things simple.”

“Who doesn’t?” She ducked under his arm and out, darting across the darkened hallway. If he thought owning a penis automatically put him in charge, he’d better think again. Flattened against the opposite wall, she peered toward the distant corner. “Damn, they’re moving fast!” she muttered as Cade flattened himself gallantly in front of her. “And don’t block my gun hand!”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he laughed, as they jogged shoulder to shoulder for the turn. They charged around it together—two targets halved the risk—just as a gun roared. Glass shattered somewhere ahead. “Guess the exit was locked.”

At the far end of this cross corridor, the plate-glass doors burst open. By the time they reached them, Trenton and his captor were staggering across the terrace, disappearing down the first set of stairs that led to the park. Clinton was using his hostage for support; he’d yanked the tails of the linebacker’s tie over his shoulders, then wrapped them around a forearm. No wonder they were making such time; Trenton moved like a runaway freight train, towing his tormentor toward an unseen goalpost.

“Dammit, he’ll wreck his poor knee again!” she panted as they clattered down stairs, across a stone landing, then more stairs. Down another flight. Sirens wailed and whooped through the night; the lights in the penthouses on West 81st Street gleamed above the swaying treetops.

“Least of his worries and—hey—’bout time. Here comes the cavalry!” With a thunder of hooves across the grass, a mounted policeman came riding, circling around from the front of the museum.

“Gun!” Raine cried. “He’s got a—!”

Locked on his fleeing target, the rider wasn’t listening. “Police!” he yelled. “Halt or I’ll—”

The fugitives stopped, swung obediently toward the command. Clinton raised his arm.

Blam!

As his rider yanked on the reins, the horse reared—then settled back to earth, snorting and sidestepping. With a befuddled frown, the cop slipped gradually from his saddle. Just as Raine reached him, he hit the ground.

“Put some pressure on that,” Cade growled, jogging past.

“Jeez, you’re bossy!” Raine glared after him, then beyond, where Trenton and the gunman were staggering out through the park’s iron fence onto Columbus Avenue. Traffic screeched to a halt as they lumbered across.

“What happened? What happened? Is he all right?” Dragged by a leashed and yapping poodle, an elderly couple hurried across the park.

“Put pressure on anything that bleeds! You’ll find an ambulance out front.” Raine rose and walked toward the snorting horse, fingers outstretched. “Good fella, good boy. Come here, sweetheart.”

The bay rolled his eyes and leaned back on his haunches, but he’d been trained to stand when the reins were dropped. He shook his black mane as she rubbed his neck.

“Easy, sweetie.” Raine gathered the reins, glanced down at her gown. Ought to just rip some legroom, but this was Shoba’s best yet, a keeper. She scrunched its hem up to her crotch, then stepped into the stirrup. “Okay, big boy, wanna collect some payback?”

They plunged through a gap in the avenue traffic, then clattered up onto the far sidewalk. Cade stood, his raised gun by his lean cheek as he peered around the corner of a coffee shop and up West 80th Street. “Where’s he headed?” she called.

“Beats me! The subway stop at Broadway?”

“Okay, whatever. Just distract him.”



Cade stared after her as she cantered south down the Columbus Ave. sidewalk, indignant yells marking her progress as pedestrians bolted for the doorways or gutter. “Me, distract him!” Cade wasn’t the one wearing a red silk thong with red high heels. “And where the heck are you off to?” He shrugged, glanced west around the corner—and winced as another bullet smacked the stone just above his head. That was, what, Clinton’s fifth shot? But did he have a nine-round automatic like the SIG-Sauer that Cade had taken off Jimmy—or a fifteen?

“Whatever.” He dashed for the nearest parked car.

A third of the way up the one-way street, Clinton had stopped an oncoming SUV.

“Great.” If he hijacked some wheels they hadn’t a prayer of catching—But no; the driver took one look at the gesturing gunman and jammed it into reverse. “Good for you!” Cade sprinted up the sidewalk, then ducked down. Both curbs were lined with parked cars, providing plenty of cover.

Meanwhile, midstreet, Clinton was losing his cool. “You gas-guzzling son of a bitch, get back here!” he screamed, wasting a shot that blew out a headlight.

The SUV sideswiped a van—screeched and scraped along the car behind it, then crunched to a glass-tinkling halt. Its far door slammed open and the driver bolted west.

Ripping his mask off, Clinton drew down on the runner, but Ten-ton dropped to his knees—which yanked on the tails of the tie the gunman had wrapped around his forearm. He staggered; the shot struck sparks off a brownstone, half a block away.

“Son of a bitch, you want me to shoot you?” Clinton jammed the bore of his pistol in the player’s ear. “Get up!”

“I’ve had enough, thanks,” the linebacker said in a soothing baritone. “So how ’bout we all just settle down and take a deep breath?”

“How ’bout I blow your brains out? On your feet! NOW!”

Peering around the front end of a Toyota, Cade lined up his sight. Okay, he could cap Clinton from here, but should he? If the creep squeezed his trigger as he died—Better to draw the heat instead, Cade decided. He shaved a bullet past Clinton’s cheek. “Drop your gun, bozo!”

A hail of bullets slammed into the Toyota. Cade retreated to the curb, then crab-walked along the car. A shot punched through its back window, then the side glass above his head. The guy packed a fifteen-round automatic as well as a temper!

“I’m doing this why?” Cade asked the stars above, then startled as a movement down the street drew his gaze. A horse, turning the far corner. Damned if Lady Godiva hadn’t ridden clear around the block! And here she came, riding hell-for-leather down the middle of the road. Distract him now!

He popped up, bounced a shot off the pavement at Clinton’s feet, then dived for the next car under withering fire. He popped up again, squeezed the trigger, and—

And—dammit all—Clinton had seen him try. So much for bluffing. Cade threw the gun at his head.

Clinton dodged it, then straightened with an ugly grin. “All out, hero? Well, ain’t that a pity, ’cause I sure saved one for you!”

Sirens whooped, blue lights flashed down at the Columbus Ave. end of the block. Finally, somebody had clued in the cops.

Too late. Clinton tossed the ends of his hostage’s tie aside. He took loving aim on Cade, savoring the moment—then paused. His grin faded to frustration. “I really am gonna shoot you.”

“Got that. You want me to cry about it?” Hold his gaze. Hold him while the hoofbeats hammered louder and louder, or was that Cade’s own heart?

“Suit yourself. You can always cry aft—” Clinton spun. Froze before the oncoming apparition: flash of long bare legs and red silk, horse big as a truck and growing bigger by the second. His jaw dropped, his gun drooped from nerveless fingers.



He’d let go of Trenton, so maybe she didn’t need her knife. Jamming it back in its sheath, Raine braced her weight in her right stirrup as she leaned down. Reached. Her target’s eyes grew wide…wider…his mouth a rounding O of horror. Just love a man with a tie! She grabbed it at the knot—“Ooof!”—and kept on riding.

“Aaaaagh! Urrkkk!” He tripped—somehow found his feet as she yanked him up—to bound, stumbling and shrieking, alongside the thundering bay.

Thirty feet down the block, she flung him to the pavement and galloped on.

“Hey, cowgirl!”

Once she’d reined her mount to a snorting, curvetting trot, she glanced behind.

Cade sat midstreet on Clinton’s back. Making himself quite comfortable, it looked like. “Where d’you think you’re going?”

Sticking around here answering police questions all night would be a total bore. They had plenty of witnesses without her. And Trenton had stumbled to his feet, looking shaken, but fine. She’d call him tomorrow, but as for now—“Got a hot date at midnight, remember?” she called, brushing her tangled hair back from a wicked smile.

Intent on the downed shooter, a wave of cops stormed past her on either side. Raine walked her horse docilely to the corner and peered uptown. Here came a cab, miraculously with its light on. “Taxi!”

When it pulled into the curb, she swung down and tied the bay to a lamppost. “I owe you a bushel of apples, sweetie.” She slid in behind the goggle-eyed cabbie. “Brooklyn Bridge, please.”

Hot date? Oh, yeah, we’ve got a date. Ignoring the shouted questions as New York City’s finest bent over him, Cade stared after the taxi. And if you think make-up sex is fun, try almost-got-shot sex, was the thought dancing round his mind.

Even if she was the enemy.




Chapter 5


“H ow did Cade know that I love the Brooklyn Bridge?” Raine wondered as she approached its first tower. Or was this simply another sign that their minds marched in step?

Whenever Raine passed through New York, she walked the bridge. She hadn’t done so yet, this trip. And always before she’d come at dawn or sunset. Now she shivered with anticipation as its massive suspension cables curved upward to either side of the boardwalk. “Don’t look back,” she encouraged herself. “No-ot yet. You can do it.”

Already she’d walked almost a quarter mile up the gradually rising ramp from street level. She was out over the East River itself—must be at least ten stories up in the air and still climbing. Beyond the bridge’s first tower, Brooklyn was a molten glow on the opposite shore, while Raine could feel Manhattan, looming at her back.

On the roadway some twenty feet below the pedestrian walk, a car rushed past, fleeing the city. Tires growled on concrete, a radio wailed. A cool glissando of sax and trumpet drifted back on the salty air and Raine shuddered with pleasure. Rubbing the goose bumps on her bare arms, she took a deep breath—and turned. “Sha-zamm!”

Palisades of light scraped a buttermilk sky—a jagged dazzle of gold and silver, blinking red and strobing white. Diamond rivers of headlights; streaming ruby taillights. While serene in its own beauty, a fat saffron moon smiled above this electric city of neon-crazed cliff dwellers.

The shout of “Hey! Bike on your right!” brought Raine back to her senses. The rider whizzed past, helmeted head tucked to his handlebars, massive calves pumping. “Damn tourists!”

“Sorry!” Raine laughed after him.

On she strolled, swinging occasionally to drift backward like a child leaving the movie theater, shaking her head with incredulous delight. Born and raised in the wide-open West, she’d never make a city girl. Yet at times like this she could see why New Yorkers thought the sun revolved around their own special little island.

Like the rough granite face of a cathedral, the bridge’s first tower reared into the dark. The boardwalk split and flowed to either side of the central stone column, then rejoined on its far side. Rounding it, Raine almost bumped into a desperately kissing couple.

Her thighs tightened in reflex. Her nipples brushed against the silk of her dress. Aftermath of adrenaline, she admitted ruefully as she skirted the clinch—that and the knowledge that she should meet Kincade anytime now. “If he could get away from the police,” she muttered to herself. They might keep him half the night.

But Raine didn’t believe it. He’d come. Something about the man told her that for better or worse he kept his promises. “A fossil of great rarity and interest,” she repeated, her blood surging with the thought. If he really had one to sell, she meant to acquire it!

Ashaway All wasn’t a nonprofit museum that could throw its money around, but a business, with a business’s constant need to score. But would the attraction she’d felt for Cade survive a half–hour of hard-nosed negotiations? He didn’t look as though he’d be a pushover, when it came to bargaining. She was no cream puff herself, while cutting a deal. “Whatever.” If it came to a choice, rare fossils were in shorter supply than sexy men.

Yet nobody waited on the boardwalk ahead. “Still time,” Raine comforted herself.

Beyond the first tower, the view of the East River opened out to either side—a black velvet shawl crinkled with moonlight, spangled with gliding navigation lights. A tug trudged upstream against the monstrous outgoing tide. Nimble as a water bug, an airfoil ferry spun out from a pier below Wall Street. It rumbled off toward the outer harbor, trailing a widening wake of creamy foam.

“Whoa—baby! Check it out!”

Raine bobbled a stride, then walked grimly on. Up ahead on her right, three young men had balanced their way out one of the iron beams that stretched above the traffic lanes on the deck beneath. This idiot feat took them out to the actual edge of the bridge, where they could look straight down to the water, some hundred and fifty feet below—or jump, if they were so inclined.

They looked more the type to push somebody else, than to jump. “Hey, bitch! Want some company?”

“Sure she does! She dressed up just for me!”

Without a word, Raine walked on, passing the point where their beam intersected the waist-high side rail of the footbridge.

They weren’t the type to take a hint. Here they came, catcalling and clowning as they wobbled back along the girder with their arms outstretched.

Not a bicycle cop in sight, nor anybody else. Raine sighed as she stopped to skim her gown up to midthigh. Definitely a side zipper next time.

Behind her the chorus rose to gleeful hoots—then missed a couple of beats as she unsheathed her knife.

The heavy silk slithered back to her ankles. Holding the dagger up by its point, Raine turned—and tipped her head inquiringly. You’re sure this is a good idea?

“Sometimes a warning works,” Trey had told her more than once. “And sometimes it gives away your best advantage—the element of surprise.”

Holding the stupefied gaze of the leading punk, Raine flipped the knife straight up in the air. Without seeming to watch its whirling rise, she caught it as it spun back to earth. Blade first.

Her audience stood on the beam, uneasily silent.

She tossed the knife again—caught it casually. Their size had misled her. They were younger than she’d thought, still in their teens, which if anything, made them more dangerous. Overdosed on testosterone, and probably they’d yet to learn how to shift into reverse. Still, the second one in line was actually shuffling his feet. The third had developed a sudden interest in the cars passing below. Raine gave their leader a confiding smile; it was best not to challenge. You’re prowlers of the night—but so am I. And it’s a big bridge. Who needs trouble?

She turned and strolled on, her ears tuned for overtaking footsteps. All she heard was a buzz of earnest mutters.

Then there, up ahead, sauntering to meet her from the Brooklyn shore, came Kincade! Raine laughed aloud. He must have driven over to the far side, where parking was better. She gave the knife a final jaunty flip, sheathed it, then met him at the halfway point.

He scowled over her shoulder. “Did they bother you?”

“No more than I could handle.”

“Ah.” Amusement softened that look of glinting danger. “Then I guess I’ll let ’em live.”

They turned as one to rest their forearms on the railing, and gaze southeast toward the outer harbor. Miles away, the twinkling spikes and curves of the Verrazano Bridge marked the start of the beckoning ocean.

“Trenton was all right?” she asked as the sea breeze rippled her hair.

“Seemed to be,” Cade agreed without turning. “They tried to whisk him off in an ambulance, but he wasn’t having any. By the time I ducked out, he was busy buying your police horse. Claimed he and a couple of teammates own a racing stable in Maryland, and any horse that saves his life, belongs in high clover, not breathing traffic fumes.”

“And as for you?” Cade laughed under his breath. “Ten-ton said if it takes his last nickel, he’s naming your Carnotaurus ‘Rainy.’”

“Oh, please!” Raine swung around with a comic groan.

“And as for me…” Cade’s smile faded to intention.

Her lips parted in surprise—she turned her head aside as his mouth descended.

Another guy who couldn’t take a hint. He smelled of bay rum, tasted of champagne. Easy and slow, his kiss teased the quivering corner of her mouth, till she smiled in spite of herself. Warm lips brushed her cheekbone, then trailed deliciously away. “That’s…for saving my neck, there at the end.”

“After I’d gotten you into the fix,” she reminded him, swearing inwardly at the way her voice had gone all fuzzy—all of her had gone hot and fuzzy. “He was my friend, not yours.”

“Well, yeah,” Cade allowed with a glimmer of mischief. “But still—”

She flattened a hand on his chest and locked her elbow, holding off a second demonstration of gratitude. “How about we get to business? What’s this fossil that you want to sell me?”

“I want to—” Cade’s brows flew together. “Then you didn’t send me—” from an inner pocket of his suit, he fished a familiar white envelope “—this? You said you had a date at midnight. Once I read this, I assumed—”

Raine shook her head. “I got an invitation, too, delivered at the party.” She’d dropped hers somewhere in all the excitement.

“Then—” Cade snapped a glance left, then right. No one approached from either direction. “Hmm.”

He really hadn’t sent it, Raine concluded, noting his wariness. “It’s clear why somebody would offer to sell me a fossil—they do it all the time. But why would someone think you’d be interested in buying bones?”

“Ever heard of an outfit called SauroStar?” Suddenly Cade’s smile wasn’t all that friendly.

Raine’s hand twitched toward her mouth, then she fisted it. Too late to wipe that kiss away. “You’re connected to SauroStar?” The company had materialized out of nowhere last year. If it even had a headquarters, so far Trey and Ash hadn’t been able to find it. SauroStar seemed to be simply a Web site backed by a very deep pocket. But it had been competing with Ashaway All in a way that was increasingly disturbing.

Sure, there were half-a-dozen commercial fossil-collecting and supply houses like her family’s around the world. They vied fiercely for significant discoveries with each other—and also with the staffs of museums and academic teams fielded by the paleontology departments of numerous universities.

But though feuds did arise from time to time, generally the competition was nothing personal. Advances in science made by a rival were to be applauded, as well as envied; they were comrades in the same exhilarating quest for knowledge. And considering that one commercial firm might dig up the back end of a Stegosaurus—while another found a front—well, in the long run, cooperation simply made sense.

But SauroStar didn’t seem to be hunting bones, so much as hunting Ashaway bones. At least it was starting to feel that way, the family had agreed in a cross-country conference call only last month. This summer alone they’d lost three licenses to dig on private property out West, productive and profitable quarry sites that the firm had worked for two generations. And oddest of all, once SauroStar outbid them for these collecting rights, it hadn’t bothered to dig. Dog in the manger tactics, Ash had labeled that.

Trey with his military background had offered a more ominous term. Scorched earth. Where one army burns or steals everything in its path, so the pursuing army can’t survive. “You’re with SauroStar?” she repeated. “We’ve been trying to talk to you guys!” Messages to the company had been met so far with stony silence. The only contact given on the Web site was—she winced as it hit her—“You’re OAKincade@tiac.net?”

“Yes. And I’m not with SauroStar—I own it.”

“Well, you’ve got a funny way of doing business, Kincade.”

“Really?” His amber eyes mocked her. “Up till now, it’s been an amusing hobby. But now that I’ve got time to give it my full attention…”

Raine bristled. Behind that sardonic smile, he was threatening her. Threatening Ashaway All. But why? And with what—financial ruin? Her family’s firm was the biggest, best-known fossil supply house in the world. He wouldn’t find it easy to knock them off the top of the hill. But, he looked cool, confident, dangerously capable. A man who accomplished his goals.

“Excuse, please. You are Miss Ashaway? And Mr. Kincade?”

They spun at the softly accented words—to find a slender young woman standing before them. Bundled in a tightly belted trench coat, she hugged a cardboard box to her stomach. A box that was either heavy or precious, judging from the way her gloved fingers gripped it.

“I’m Kincade.” Offering his hand, Cade smiled warmly. “You have a fossil you’d like to sell me?”

Hey, not so fast! “And I’m Raine Ashaway of Ashaway All. My company is always in the market for fine fossils.” Stepping up beside Cade, she gave him a subtle hip check, then added in Tagalog, “And what is your name?”

The girl’s almond eyes narrowed for an instant, then widened as she tossed her head prettily. “That is not my language.”

And you’re not saying what is, Raine noted. “Sorry. My mistake.” But she wasn’t far off. The girl came from somewhere south of the Philippines. Quite possibly, like Raine’s own sister Dana, she was of mixed race; the southeast Pacific was the crossroads of the world. Well, whatever had gone into this one’s genes, the results were certainly pleasing.

And clearly she knew it, the way she batted her lashes at Cade when he asked her name. “You…may call me Lia.”

Yeah, but who are you at home? There was something about her, a certain watchfulness, a certain smugness in the way the corners of her plump little mouth curled, that scratched at Raine’s nerves. Also, what was with those gloves, on a balmy September night? And if her tropic blood was really thin enough to need them, then why choose gloves that had been chopped off at the first knuckles? Pickpocket gloves. Is that what she’s come to do, pick our pockets?

“Lia, what a pretty name. And how did you find us tonight?” Cade asked smoothly. He’d turned on the charm full blast, but was he as smitten as he appeared—or flattering for his own ends?

“Oh, that was easy. I learn on the Internet that you both have interest in this sort of thing.” Lia’s fingers caressed the box. “Then I look up your names on LexisNexis to see where I find you.”

Now there might be a clue. LexisNexis was a specialized search engine, for tracking citations in print. The browser was much too expensive for the average user, but newspapers subscribed to the service, as did some colleges. Raine studied the girl’s honey-colored face. A student from abroad? New York was full of them, many sent here on scholarship.

The cleverest girl from a very small pond. That might account for her air of self-congratulation.

“The New York Times say that you will be here in the city, tonight. At the natural history museum how-do-you-call-it? Gala? And so I invite you both to come and bid on something much more special than a Carno—” Lia wrinkled her nose and laughed “—a big ugly lizard.”

That was my ugly lizard and I bet you know it. Wherever Lia came from, it must be one of those cultures where the women knife each other in the back, when a good-looking guy comes around. But oh, so daintily.

Well, more fool she. Though Raine would have to give her credit. Lia was an enterprising kid, to set up her own auction in the middle of the Brooklyn Bridge. “So, could we see what you have?” she asked briskly.

“But most certainly,” Lia agreed, directing her answer at Cade. She led the way to one of the benches that were spaced at intervals along the edge of the walkway. Cade promptly sat beside her, with an arm stretched along the backrest behind the girl’s shoulders. Raine gritted her teeth and hovered above them. She almost hoped it was some trashy little dime-a-dozen trilobite! In which case she’d leave Cade to win his auction of one—and bid on whatever else he wanted—and she’d head on home. To a nice hot bath, she promised herself, rubbing her arms.

Cade glanced up at her; his brows knit together as their eyes met. A private awareness skated between them. He started to speak—then turned back to the box, where Lia was lifting away wads of crumpled newspaper.

“Here, let me take those.” Raine grabbed a double handful of paper as the breeze snatched at the packing.

“Those are nothing,” Lia muttered, intent on a bundle the size of a football that she was unwrapping. “It is this…”

As the last paper peeled away, Raine smothered a gasp. A dino tooth! The gently curved fang was nearly twice as long as Lia’s hand. Rounded like a lethal punch, it came from a member of the theropod family, for sure; quite possibly a T. rex. “Careful!” she murmured. Sixty-five million years after he’d shed it, you could cut yourself on the serrated edge of a Tyrannosaurus’s tooth.

“Let’s throw a little light on this.” Cade produced a penlight from an inner pocket, flicked it on.

And Raine grabbed for the railing as her knees went weak. Oh, my God! “Where did you—!” Where on earth could Lia have found this?

Coruscating with green-and-pink flames, then glimmers of coppery gold, the tooth flamed as Cade played the light over it. Chain lightning and rainbows, trapped inside bone!

Or replacing bone, actually. By some happy chance, mineralized water had trickled into the pores of the buried tooth over a million years or more, to create an opalized fossil.

Lia laughed on a shrill note of triumph. She turned the tooth in Cade’s light, setting off another explosion of fireworks. “You like?”

A T. rex tooth made entirely of fire opal? “It’s…pretty,” Raine admitted in a shaken voice. And if she fainted, would they hold up the auction till she’d revived?

Opalized fossils were Raine’s professional specialty—and her personal obsession. The circumstances that allowed them to form were so vanishingly rare. With two staggering exceptions, all the opalized fossils that had been discovered so far were invertebrates—small snails and shells, unremarkable except for their composition.

Then, rarest of the rare, came the only known opalized dinosaurs in all the world. Both of them had been discovered in the opal mines of western Australia. The larger specimen was a humdrum little pliosaur. It was fourteen feet long.

But a ten-inch tooth from the bottom jaw meant that Lia’s entire outrageous, unbelievable beast had to be close to…fifty feet!

And if by some miracle its entire skeleton was made of fire opal? Where, oh, where, oh, where did you find this? Raine fought an urge to grab the girl by her shoulders, try to shake the answer out of her.

The largest T. rex ever unearthed was Sue—just a plain vanilla fossil, forty-five feet long, eighty percent complete. But collectors adored T. rexes. They were scarce. They were sexy. At a Sotheby auction, Sue had brought nearly eight and a half million dollars.

Compared with Sue, what would a fifty-foot, fire opal dragon bring? Enough gold to sink a battleship? A ransom for Bill Gates? Could you trade it for the Great Pyramid at Giza?

Who could possibly say? A fire opal T. rex would be priceless. A wonder of the world. You’d just have to put it up for auction and see what bid was hammered down.

Lia held the tooth close enough for Cade to kiss. “Would you like to buy this?”

“Oh, yeah,” Cade admitted, his voice husky with desire.

“And you?” Lia challenged, deigning at last to notice Raine. “What would you give me for this?”

Off the top of my head? Raine’s stomach whirled. Valuing a unique object, with no sales history, she could only guess at its worth. Ashaway All could raise two million easily—three, scraping the barrel, but that was their total acquisitions fund for the entire year.

If they had time to broker the deal to a private collector, act as a go-between, they could raise much more than that. Or they might put together a consortium of civic-minded dino lovers, who’d pool their funds, then donate the prize to a museum, as had been done with Sue. “Well, that depends.”

On so many things. Like for starters, was Lia the real owner of the tooth? And did she have control of the rest of the skeleton—or even know where it was?

Lia made a clicking sound of impatience. “That is no answer!” She turned back to Cade. “And you? What will you give me?”

He laughed under his breath, then glanced ironically up at Raine—and held her gaze. You and me. Awareness sizzled between them.

You against me! The breeze caught a skein of her hair, rippled it across her mouth. But still Raine wouldn’t blink. Not before he did.

“How much?” Lia cried, swinging around on the bench to intrude between them.

“A lot.” Cade shifted casually to one side, and looked up at Raine with a duelist’s smile—a white glove slapped across her face. “Put it this way, Lia. Whatever Ms. Ashaway offers you? I’ll give you more.”




Chapter 6


Y et neither of them was ready to name a price, Raine realized. Though Lia was doing her utmost to start a bidding war between them, they refused to be stampeded.

Each insisted on examining the tooth, since the first issue was: could it possibly be a fake?

But when—ladies coming decidedly second—Raine was allowed to take the tooth from Cade and turn it in the light, her hands trembled with excitement. By God, it was the real thing! She could think of no way to fake its eerie opalescence. Like the northern lights dancing on polar snow. Sunrise shining through a turquoise glacier. I’ve got to have it! Simply got to. Here was glory and fame, as well as a fortune. This was the find of the century! “Nice,” she murmured, carefully neutral.

“Then how much you give me for it?” Lia cried, almost stamping her foot with impatience.

“I’d have to talk with the other members of my firm. Come up with a suitable offer—a very generous offer,” Raine added as Lia scowled.

One reason to stall was that, given a day or two, Trey should be able to profile Kincade, now that they knew he owned SauroStar. If they could learn how much the man was worth, where his money came from, then they might estimate his top bid. Figure an offer that would knock him out of the game, without blindly overbidding.

“And you’re sure you can’t tell us where the rest of this dinosaur is located?” Cade coaxed. “I’d like to bid on the whole specimen, if you’ve got it.”

Lia snapped her fingers. “I told you and told you! You buy this first, then we talk about that.”

Raine exchanged a wry glance with her rival. Lia’s steadfast refusal to say might mean that she hoped to establish a value for one tooth—then sell the rest of the dino, bone by bone, at the same price.

But a T. rex had sixty-four teeth and a couple of hundred other bones in its body…If I offer her a hundred thou for this tooth, then it turns out she wants to multiply that by 264 for the rest of the dinosaur!

And try to explain to the kid that the sixty-fourth tooth wouldn’t be as valuable as the first tooth, since supply inevitably decreases demand. But would Lia understand and accept economic realities—or simply feel she was being cheated?

And then there were other reasons Lia might refuse to discuss the rest of the dino’s skeleton. The tooth might be stolen.

Or—Raine’s pulse rocketted with the thought—What if she doesn’t know where the rest of it is? What if the skeleton’s still in the ground? Up for grabs? In which case, Raine was on her way to…somewhere. Gone yesterday! But I’ve got to learn where.

“Maybe the Internet was wrong, your Web sites lie! Maybe neither of you have the money to buy such a treasure,” Lia cried. She must have imagined herself going home tonight with a fortune in her pocket. Probably she’d picked out the car she meant to buy tomorrow. She was beginning to seem even younger than Raine’s first guess of twenty. Hissing with displeasure, she bent over her box and began to rewrap the tooth.

“Lia, calm down,” Raine pleaded. “I do have enough money and I do want to buy your fossil. I’ll call you tomorrow afternoon and we’ll discuss a price, okay?” That was rushing negotiations more than she liked, but she needed to nail the prize down, before Miss Show-Me-The-Money offered it elsewhere. “Do you have a phone number where I can reach you?”

Lia sniffed without raising her face. “Give me a number and I call you. Be by your phone tomorrow at precisely three o’clock. This is your last chance, you understand?”

Raine grimaced. “I do.” She drew a business card from her gown’s pocket, and handed it over. “Oh, and here’s your packing,” she added, dropping an armload of paper into the box. “Wrap it up nice and safe.”

Lia snorted her contempt. “And you, Kincade? Will you bid tomorrow—or lose this amazing fossil?”

Her threat simply made him chuckle. “Let me take you out to dinner tomorrow night, someplace very special. After that, I’ll make you an offer you can’t refuse.”

Blast the man! Raine could have cheerfully tossed him off the bridge. He’d soften up the girl with a drink or two, then ask what Raine had bid—he could trump that by a few thou. Plus he’d sweetened the pot with a promise of romance, a bonus that Raine had no way of matching. Lia looked up from her package, her pout melting to a starry-eyed simper.

“I’ll pick you up in a stretch limousine,” Cade added shamelessly. “Do you prefer white limos—or black?”

Lia might be young, naive and off her home court—but she wasn’t a fool. Her smile widened, catlike, triumphant. “Give me your number and I call you tomorrow—precisely at three-thirty. Then you say where I meet you. You can pay for my cab.”

“Fair enough,” Cade agreed, accepting defeat with a smile.

Lia stood. “Now I go.”

Cade rose and touched her elbow. “It’s late. Let me drive you home.”

Raine clenched her teeth. Knowing where to find the girl would give Cade an edge, as would doing her favors.

Lia tossed her hair. “No, thank you. I have other plans.”

In that case, Raine resolved to follow her home. No way was she letting that box out of sight, till it was safely off the city streets. But first. “Lia, I had one other question. Do you have anything else to sell? Anything that was found with this tooth?”

Fossils were often discovered in a narrow geologic stratum, tangled together. If the kid had any other old bones, even if they weren’t significant in themselves, their age and species might prove a clue to the T. rex’s location.

Lia frowned in thought, then set the box down on the bench. “There is…one thing.” Her gloved hand dipped into a pocket of the trench coat.

“It was found with the tooth?”

“I…yes. Of course,” she agreed, wide-eyed.

She’s lying, Raine guessed. Or possibly uncertain?

“I have another buyer for this, but if you like to bid…” Lia’s fingers opened, to show a circular object resting on her palm.

A snail of some sort, Raine guessed, just as Cade switched on his light.

Gold gleamed in its rays. Lia held a closed pocket watch, with a broken bit of chain dangling from its fob. “You found this with the tooth?” Raine bent closer. There was a name ornately engraved on its convex case.

Lia’s thumb snapped down, hiding the scrolled letters. “I told you, yes.”

“But—” Raine glanced helplessly at Cade. Surely the kid realized the two objects were separated chronologically by some sixty-five million years?

“It belong to an American soldier,” Lia added proudly. “His family will give much money for it.”

A soldier! Are we talking Vietnam? Or for that matter, Burma in World War II? Or the Spanish-American War in the Philippines. Or a guerilla clash in any one of a dozen different nations.

“But we’re bone hunters,” Cade prodded mildly. “Why would we want to buy a watch?”

“Because…” Lia opened the case, then covered a portion of its inner side with her thumb. “You see?”

Cade squinted down at the case. “It’s a…Is that a map?”

“Yessss!” She whisked the watch from under his nose. “You like to buy?”

“May I see it?” Raine asked, careful to quell her eagerness.

Lia shrugged, checked again that her thumb blocked part of the inner case, then showed it to Raine.

Below the girl’s long red thumbnail, lines had been scratched into polished gold. Raine made out a shape that looked like a lopsided butterfly, then angled below that, a range of upside down Vs—denoting mountains? “Wait!” she cried as Lia snapped the lid shut.

“You want to see the whole thing, then you must buy. How much you give me?”

For a map that possibly showed the way to where the tooth had been found? Where perhaps the rest of the dinosaur still waited?

Possibly.

But at a minimum, once she learned the name of the soldier, Trey with his connections could find out the man’s war. That might give Raine a starting point if it came to a search. “I’ll give you five hundred dollars for it.”

“It’s a nice watch,” Cade said carelessly. “I could go a thousand.”

Raine shrugged. “I suppose I could go two.”

“Three,” Cade snapped.

Lia laughed softly, and with that malicious little sound, both bidders paused, eyeing each other. The thought hung in the air between them. Are we being hustled?

Still, the tooth was no scam. “Three thousand-five,” Raine said at last.

“Five thousand.”

As she glared at Cade, Raine brushed a skein of windblown hair back from her eyes. How much money do you have, wise guy? And where does it come from? Did he have a stopping point—or was he a bottomless pocket? “Six thousand.” This was idiotic. The map, if map it really was, could lead to anything, not necessarily to ancient bones. It might be a sentimental picture of the soldier’s hometown. “You will take a check, right?” Not that she’d brought one. She carried a folded fifty for emergencies, and that was that.

“No!” Lia shook her sooty hair till it fanned around her face. “No way, Jose! Cash or no deal!”

Cade threw back his head and laughed. “And I take it you don’t accept MasterCard?”

“Absolutely not.” Lia failed to see the joke.

“Then I’m out of the running for tonight,” Raine admitted. “Let’s talk about a price tomorrow at three.”

“And whatever she offers? I’ll give you even more at dinner,” Cade assured the girl.

Lia sniffed as she picked up her box. “The soldier’s family is most desperate to buy this. They give me ten thousand, cash. You must do better than that. So goodbye, and I call you tomorrow.” Chin high, she marched off toward the Manhattan shore.

Elbows brushing, they watched her go, then glanced ruefully at each other. “We’re gonna be pretty obvious, if we both follow her,” noted Cade. “I don’t suppose you’d let me—”

“Jose?” Raine showed her teeth. “No way at all.”

“Then if that’s the way it’s gotta be, why don’t we—”

But his proposal was cut short by the puttering sound of a two-stroke engine. An old Vespa motorscooter purred out of the shadows below the Manhattan tower. Stopping beside Lia, the rider wheeled it smartly around. “Why, the crafty minx!” Cade swore as she settled onto its pillion. With a taunting wave, she rolled off toward the city.

“Other plans,” Raine echoed, looking after her. A woman of ambition and forethought. It wouldn’t pay to underestimate the kid.

“Well, meantime…” Cade swung to face her. “It’s even later. Could I drive you home?”

As second choice to little Lia?

His amber eyes had darkened. When they rose from her lips, they promised any sort of ride she might want. To any destination she desired. A tongue of summer lightning licked up her spine; still Raine shook her head. “No, thanks.”

Mixing pleasure with business was risky. But mixing pleasure with a feud, when only one of them knew the terms or limits of the grudge? That might prove fatal. What did he have against the Ashaways?

“Pity. But in that case—” Cade shrugged out of his jacket, and swooped it around her bare shoulders.

His body heat settled deliciously upon her. The soft wool smelled of active, clean male, with a hint of his cologne. Raine started to wriggle free of the jacket, but he’d gripped both lapels. Slip out of it and she’d step straight into his arms. She stiffened for a moment—then shrugged. There was no sense fighting, when it felt so good. The weight of his knuckles resting on her collarbones was seductive as a drug. “I…don’t know where to return it.”

“No problem. You’ll be seeing me around.”

But is that a promise—or a threat? she wondered, walking west without a glance behind. And which would be harder to handle?

Whatever. She’d always choose interesting, over safe.

Right now, nothing interested her more in the world than a T. rex made of fire opal. As she passed into the tower’s shadow, Raine slipped her fisted hand into a pocket of Cade’s jacket—she let go a wad of crumpled newspaper.




Chapter 7


W hen they reached their building, Lia hopped off the back of the Vespa. Leaning against the front door to hold it open, she tapped her foot with impatience while Ravi wrestled his motorbike up the steep steps from the sidewalk. If he didn’t chain it in the rear of the dirty hallway, it would be stolen by morning.

Watching her roommate grunt and groan and swear at the machine, she thought of Kincade, so smooth and good smelling. Lia had to giggle at the difference. Such a man would own a car, not a beat-up old motorbike. He’d drive a Jaguar, and he’d have a garage in which to park it. Maybe he even had a chauffeur!

When she was rich, she would have a chauffeur—a blond one in a blue uniform, who would carry her shopping bags and open doors for her. Soon, yes! She bent to kiss the box she held, then forgot about helping Ravi. She almost danced up to their apartment.

Six flights of badly lit stairs that smelled of cat piss and cabbage dampened her gaity, but hardened her resolve. The sooner she had money, the sooner she could move away from this dump and the losers who lived here.

Placing her box on the shelf above her desk, she took the letter from its top drawer. She paced the room, her lips shaping the words as she reread them.

Like I explained when you phoned me last week, that pocket watch has got to belong to my grandfather, Private Amos Szabo, of the 11th Airborne. He always carried just such a watch. But please, please believe me, miss, it isn’t worth beans. I’m sorry if I sounded harsh, and that I yelled at you. You surprised me is all, calling out of the blue like that. And wanting all that money.

But believe me, its only value is sentimental. You see, my grandmother never knew what happened to my grandfather (her dear beloved husband). Only that he and his squad parachuted into the island of Borneo, during WWII. Except for that one letter she got, he was never heard from again—none of them came back. He’s gotta be dead by now, but the family would sure like to know where he died and how. You can understand that, can’t you?

I’d be happy to pay you fifty dollars as a reward for return of the watch. You went to a lot of trouble to find me, and you must be real clever to have tracked me down on the Internet. Lucky for me, I guess, that my name isn’t a common one.

I’d be glad to pay the postage if you want to mail the watch C.O.D. And maybe I could give you a bit more than fifty, if you really feel you deserve it. Maybe if you wrote down all the details you know about where and when he died, that ought to be worth something, I guess, shouldn’t it? Fair’s fair, I always say.

So why don’t you call me again—real soon—and let’s talk it over? I swear I’ll make it worth your while.

Yours truly,

Amos Szabo the third

As she punched in Szabo’s number, Ravi tried the doorknob, then knocked. “Lia?”

“I’m busy! Use your key.” But she’d lost track of the numbers. She swore and started over as he shambled into the living room.

“Who can you be calling at this time of night? So late, it’s not polite. It isn’t done.”

“Oh? But you see me doing it, don’t you?” She gave him a teasing smile. He was so easy to handle. “Anyway, this man wants to hear from me, most desperately.”

“It is not polite,” he muttered with a weary shrug. “And this time you really must repay me the charges, okay?” He went on into the bathroom. “Yes, Lia?”

“Most certainly,” she called, knowing he’d have forgotten by the time the bill came. Or if he didn’t, why, by then she’d be rich; her debts would be nothing. She let the phone ring four times, then five, as she drummed her fingers on the desktop.

When the man answered, she brightened. “Hello. It is me again,” she began—then frowned as the voice kept on speaking. Ah, an answering machine!

“It is me again,” she repeated, after the signal. “Lia, who has your—”

“Hello!” broke in a man’s voice, rusty with sleep. “Missy, is that you? Hang on. I’m here. Just let me—” He seemed to fumble with something, then said, “Well, you’re sure some night owl.”

An owl? What was that? “It is night,” she agreed. “And you ask me to call, so here I am. I need to know. Do you want to buy the watch?”

He cleared his throat. “You got my letter? I mailed it to that post office box number you gave me. Did you read it yet?”

“Yes, I’m reading it now, tonight. And I need to know.”

“Well, if you got the letter, then now you do know. That watch isn’t even real gold, just gold-plated brass. But like I said, if you could tell me a bit about where my granddaddy died, then I could pay you maybe a hundred bucks, all told.”

“I say to you last time we speak. My price is ten thousand dollars, for your ancestor’s watch.”

“Now look, you little island monk—!” He paused, muttered something under his breath, then laughed. But the laugh had sharp edges. “Look, Missy, maybe I could give you a hundred-fifty for your trouble, if you—”

Lia snorted. “I have two other bidders who will give me more than that.”

“What? You showed it to somebody else? Shit! Now what would you go and do that for? Nobody’d want it but my family!”

“Ohhh, you think so?” Smiling, she wound a lock of hair round and round her gloved forefinger. “One lady, she will give me ten thousand for this watch. And there is a man—a very rich and handsome man—who will give me twelve.” At least Kincade surely would tomorrow night, once he’d seen how she looked in her blue model’s dress that she’d found at the consignment store.

“So my price must go up, if you wish to bid. The price is now…fifteen thousand dollars.” Her face went all hot; her eyes went misty, as she thought of so much money. Picturing what she’d do with all those excellent dollars, she waited till he’d finished cursing. “You like to buy?” she said when he’d wound down to hard-breathing silence.

“Shit,” he said softly. “Well…it wouldn’t be easy, raising that kind of nut. You said there’s some sort of map drawn on the inside of the cover?”

Her smile widened. He was like a little bird that had hopped to her palm for sugar. If the fingers were quick…“Yes, it has a map. But if you are a poor man, without much money to buy the watch of your ancestor, well, I can sell the map to one of these others. I will make a copy of the map and sell it. Then I will scratch out the map on the watch, and you may buy it without, most reasonably.”

“No!”

She clapped a palm to her mouth to smother the giggles. Oh, little bird, you are in my cage now! “No?” she said innocently. “You want the map?”

“Uh, err, I don’t want you messing with that watch. However my granddaddy fixed it, that’s the way I want it. Shit, girl, it’s an heirloom! His souvenir of the war.”

Oh, little lying bird. How you sing! They all wanted the map most desperately. Lia couldn’t hide the laughter in her voice, but now there was no need to. He was caged. “So. You want the watch—and you want the map.”

“That’s right. That’s exactly right. But at a reasonable price. No more dickin’ around.”

Whatever that meant. “Very reasonable,” she purred. “My price has gone up. Watch with no map is fifteen thousand dollars. Watch with map is eighteen thousand.”

He roared like a gored water buffalo. Like a lovely silver jet taking off from the Singapore airport. When she was rich, she’d fly on a jet to Paris. First-class ticket.

But now this fool had given her an idea that would make her even richer. Before she sold the watch to Szabo, she would copy its map—and sell one copy to the pale-haired lady who was much too old for Kincade. Why, that one must be almost thirty!

And Lia would sell a second copy of the map to Kincade.

Or perhaps she’d give him his copy as a wedding gift, if he offered to marry her. Once he saw her in her blue dress…

“Look,” Szabo growled. “You still there?”

“I sit here, waiting most patiently.”

“Yeah, right. Well, listen, you can be patient for another day or two, can’t you? Don’t be in such a rush. I’ll raise the eighteen thousand, but it’ll take me a couple of days. Meantime, don’t you sell it to anybody else—and don’t you show it to anybody. Do that for me, then in two days, I promise. You’ll get what’s comin’ to you.”

Yes! That was precisely what she wanted. Just what she deserved. After all her dreams, all her hard work to make them happen, at last it was coming.



Szabo cradled the phone, then leaned across the bed to look at the caller id on his new answering machine. “Gotcha.” Area code 212. That was New York City.

He stood, stretched, then hauled his old army duffel bag out of the closet; he’d packed it days ago. Figure a two-hour drive to Raleigh, then catch the morning flight.

When he got to New York, he’d go to a library, find a backward directory, which showed the address when you looked up the phone number. Dropping by a drugstore for a roll of duct tape and a pack of single-edge razorblades wouldn’t take but a few minutes.

By early evening latest, he’d be knocking on the bitch’s door.



“One of these days you’re going to tell me you were a guy in your last life,” Raine murmured drowsily, her fingers ruffling through silky-soft fur. Otto, the portly orange tomcat from the apartment below, had a suspicious fondness for jumping her, every time he caught her in bed. Stretched out full length on her chest, with his nose snuggled under her chin, he rumbled in unabashed contentment. He’d tiptoed up the fire escape, then in through her open window this morning and she’d woken to a familiar twenty-two pounds settling into place. “You know, I’ve had maybe four hours sleep. Surely a cat can appreciate that that’s not quite—”

She broke off as the bedside phone rang. Managing to reach it without dislodging her passenger, she yawned and said, “That…was fast.”

She’d phoned, then faxed Trey at headquarters when she got in last night. Out in Grand Junction, Colorado, the rising sun would have yet to clear the Rockies. Knowing Trey, he hadn’t slept since she roused him.

“I’ve just scratched the surface so far.” Trey’s gravelly voice echoed the cat’s rumble—about two octaves lower. “But I’ve got a few things of interest.”

Trey was the Expediter of Ashaway All. The still and ingenious center around which Raine and her siblings whirled. The man who arranged, and the man who obtained. He was an ex-SEAL—and maybe ex-merc, though he’d never admit it—with useful connections in the weirdest backwaters of the world.

A dozen years ago he’d come limping into their lives on his one good leg plus a whole lot of attitude, and he’d soon made himself indispensable to the firm and to the family. There wasn’t one of the Ashaway women who hadn’t sworn at one point or another that she’d die if he didn’t love her—and there wasn’t one who could claim she’d ever been properly kissed by the man.

But they all would have gone to the wall for Trey, and he for them. He was big brother and stand-in father, since John Ashaway’s accident. Keeper of their darkest secrets and their most excruciating bloopers. Teaser and mentor and coach. And he got them whatever they needed, whenever they needed it; he was their expediter. “Whatcha…got?” she asked on another yawn.

“The language on that newspaper you faxed me is Indonesian.”

“Darn, I was afraid of that.” Indonesia was a sprawling archipelagic nation, covering a swath of the Pacific about the size of Europe. The country encompassed a few monster-size islands to the northwest of Australia, and hundreds of small ones. If Lia was Indonesian, then she and her tooth might hail from Bali, or New Guinea, or Java, or—“It’s not from Sumatra, where the tsunami hit?”

“No, from about a thousand miles east,” Trey assured her. “The name of that paper translates as the Morning Star. It’s the local daily for the city of Pontianak, Kalimantan.”

“As in Borneo?” Raine rolled to one side, then unhooked Otto’s claws from her T-shirt. He scrambled to his feet and stalked to the foot of the bed, tail lashing his vexation.

“Yep. Borneo is the third-largest island in the world. It’s divided between three countries. Kalimantan in the south is a province of Indonesia. Sarawak and Sabah in the northeast and northwest are states of Malaysia. Then tucked in between them is the Kingdom of Brunei.”

“A lot of ground to cover. What’s the date on the newspaper?”

“Mid-August of this year.”

“Six weeks ago—that sounds about right. The way the tooth was wrapped, I’m betting somebody mailed it to Lia. If she’d carried it as hand luggage on a plane or ship, she wouldn’t have needed so much cushioning—and it was too valuable to risk checking it with her bags.”

“Plus you said her English is fairly fluent, which might mean she’s been in New York awhile.”

“Mmm,” Raine mused. “So six weeks ago somebody packs up this tooth and mails it to Lia. Somebody who can only afford to send it surface mail. Somebody who trusts her to find out what it’s worth and to cut a deal.”

“A relative…a friend…maybe a classmate?” Trey hazarded.

“Somebody who sees Lia as the smart one in the family? The big-city college girl who should know how to tap the American money machine?”

“Sounds about right. And here’s another thing. The city of Pontianak is on the coast, at the mouth of the Kapuas River. But that tooth can’t have come from there. Geology’s wrong for finding fossils—nothing but swamps and mangrove. But more than that, the area’s too populated, with an entrenched power structure whose prime law is ‘Top Dog eats first.’ A priceless find along the coast would have been impossible to hide. It would’ve been snapped up by the head honchos.

“And when they went to sell it, the boss-guys wouldn’t trust it to a twenty-year-old girl, with no credentials or standing.”

“Amateur hour is what we’re talking here,” Raine muttered.

“Gotta be. So if not from the coast, the tooth came from somewhere in the wilds of the interior. That’s the deepest, darkest rainforest remaining in the world. No cities, no roads. Transportation strictly by jungle footpath or by longboat up the river. You’ve got rice-farming tribes settled along the waterways, and nomad hunters up in the mountains. It’s not even a money economy yet in the interior—it’s barter. Boar fat and birds and wild honey brought down to the river towns to be traded for shotgun shells and salt.”

The back of Raine’s neck was tingling. This was why she was a bone hunter! Not just for fossils, but for the crazy adventures in finding them. The new, the strange and the wild were what called her. “That’s where it came from!” she said with conviction. “Somebody found it up there, somewhere in the mountains. An innocent who hadn’t a clue what it would bring in a city.”

“Probably traded it for something practical, like a case of dried beef or a pair of used eyeglasses,” Trey agreed. “So it passed into a slightly savvier somebody’s hands, who passed it on to Lia to get what she could for it—where the money grows on trees, and the streets are paved with gold.”

Raine sighed. “Yep. She was flashing dollar signs on every wavelength.”

“Have you thought about an offer price?”

“That depends on what will beat Kincade. What have you found on him?”

“Nothing you’re going to like. Turns out he owns half of Okab Oil.”

Oil! She winced. “A drilling company out West? He sounds like a Westerner, with a bit of polish.”

“No such luck. We’re talking offshore oil, the Red Sea. His partner is the nephew-in-law of the emir of Kurat.”

“Oh, joy! Dad always says you can judge a person by his enemies. But we have to piss off an Arabian oil tycoon?”

“You’re sure he’s carrying a grudge? Did he threaten you?”

Raine smiled to herself. She could almost hear Trey flexing, two thousand miles to the west. “Not in so many words. He said something about SauroStar being just a hobby so far, but now that he’s got time to give us his undivided attention…”

“Hmm. Is there any chance, considering this is the find of a lifetime and considering you’ve been known to be a trifle, well…intense…when it comes to getting your dino, that you’re mistaking plain old bone hunter’s lust for something stronger and more personal?”

Slowly she shook her head at the cat, who’d rolled onto his side to gaze at her with a pair of simmering amber eyes. “No.” Cade had looked at her last night the way Otto must contemplate a mouse creeping along the baseboards. As something to be toyed with, then tasted, and finally devoured—and every last bite would be personal. “No, he’s got something against us, Trey. Something big and bad.”

“Then it’s got to be findable. I’ll keep on digging.”

“Thanks.” She stretched to rub her foot along the cat’s belly—a dangerous caress, but hard to resist. “Anything else?”

“One last thing. You mentioned the girl’s gloves? Are you sure they were gloves—and not tattoos?”

Raine laughed in surprise. “No, the light was hardly the best, but I’m fairly certain. Thin blue gloves, chopped off at the first knuckle. Why?”

“Just something I stumbled across, once in my travels. You know Borneo’s head-hunting country?”

“Yikes!” Raine sat upright, then scootched back against the mounded pillows. “But that’s got to be…way back in their dark and evil past, right?”

“Well, yeah, if you call 2001 the Bad Ol’ Days.”

“Oh, stop! You’re not serious.”

“’Fraid I am, though I s’pose you could write off that latest episode of head-taking as a nasty little hiccup. Just a minor backslide during an intertribal tiff about land rights.”

“I thought Lia seemed a bit…intense, herself,” Raine murmured, smoothing her palm thoughtfully down her neck.

“If she’s a Dayak, then, yeah, the women were as warlike as the men. But what you’ve got to understand is that head-hunting was a matter of prestige. To prove your daring and skill. If a guy wanted to score with a girl, he darned sure better bring a few heads when he came courting.”

“Beats a bouquet of roses any ol’ day,” Raine observed dryly.

“On an island with ten thousand flowers for the picking, I reckon it did. Anyway, to take a head meant you were a great achiever. And to advertise that you were a head-lopping Bravo, you had your hands tattooed blue—from the wrist to the first knuckle.”

Goose bumps stampeded up her arms. Raine shuddered as she rubbed them. “Oh, come on! This is a thoroughly twenty-first century kid. Uses the Internet and nail polish, for Pete’s sake.”

“Yeah, but it never fails to amaze me how people hang on to what works for them from their own culture, like polygamy or camel racing, then they graft MTV and cell phones on top of it. All I’m saying is that maybe Lia’s given herself blue hands to show she’s a high achiever. That she’s fearless and she’ll stop at nothing.”

“Or that she means to score big,” Raine murmured.

“All of the above. So my one bit of advice to you is, whatever you do, just don’t…lose your—”

Raine groaned. “Don’t you dare say it!”

“Okay, I won’t,” he agreed, chuckling. “I’ll call you when I’ve got more.” And just like that Trey was gone.

Raine sighed, hung up the phone and oozed back down to mattress level. “Nap?” she suggested, rubbing Otto’s belly with her toes.

Like a fuzzy orange bear trap, his paws snapped around her.




Chapter 8


I t was 3:08! “Come on, Ms. Precisely, pick up that phone!” Raine prayed, wincing as another helicopter juddered overhead, then roared off over the Brooklyn Bridge.

Betting that Lia would have set their original rendezvous not too far from wherever she lived, Raine had returned to the neighborhood. The bridge breached like a gray whale over her northern horizon. Beneath its belly the blue river teemed with barges and boats. The lunchtime flood of brokers from Wall Street had gone back to their moneymaking, though foot-weary tourists still shuffled along the pier’s decks and stopped at its railings to ogle the view.

Raine’s laptop lay ready on the table before her, already opened to a Web site that boasted the best backward phone directory online. If Lia called from a landline, Raine could ID her number, then trace it from there.

“Dammit, call me!” Could Cade have gotten to the kid somehow? Outbid her already?

“Nice day. Feel like some company?” A straggler from the stock exchange touched the back of the chair opposite Raine’s and gave her a winsome smile.

“Sorry, but I’m expecting a business—yes!” Raine cried as her phone chimed. The suit shrugged and retreated while she said crisply, “Raine Ashaway speaking.”

“How much will you bid?” demanded Lia, cutting straight to the chase.

Raine rolled her eyes. “Hello, Lia. How are you?” That drew no response, so she continued. “I do have an offer I think you’ll like, but it’s a bit complicated. I’d rather show you the figures on paper. Could I invite you over to Pier 17 for a drink and a chat?”

“Not today. How much will you give for this amazing, most beguiling fossil?”

Raine smacked her forehead, then sighed. “Okay. Do you know what I mean by percent? A share of something?”

“Huh! You think I’m stupid? I study math, science, many difficult subjects here in New York City.”

“Good, then here’s what Ashaway All proposes. It wouldn’t be fair to offer you just a flat price for the tooth, because nobody knows what it’s worth. Nothing like it has ever been seen or sold before. So here’s what I suggest: We pay you a certain amount up front. An advance on what you’ll finally realize.” Enough cash to keep the kid happy, and let her embark on a shopping spree. Raine was hoping that by the time the real payoff arrived, she’d have calmed down enough to bank some of it. It would be a shame to see her blow her fortune overnight.

“How much?”

“That depends on what you sell me.” Much as she wanted the tooth, Raine wanted the rest of the T. rex more. Whatever Lia knew about the dino’s location, that had to be part of their deal. “But first, here’s what Ashaway All would do to earn our cut of the final sales price.”

Damn, but she hated to negotiate over the phone, unable to watch Lia’s face. Still Raine forged cheerily on, outlining how her firm, with its sterling reputation and worldwide connections, was best suited to vouch for the tooth’s authenticity and provenance.

In addition to that, they were uniquely qualified to promote publicity and boost desire. They’d create a buzz through scientific channels by writing scholarly articles for paleontology mags.

They’d alert relevant museums and the most avid collectors to this extraordinary opportunity. And best of all, Raine hoped to form a consortium of buyers to acquire, then donate Lia’s tooth to a world-class museum, where dinosaur-lovers from everywhere could come to—

“But how much do I get and when do I get it?” Lia cut in.

“I could give you your advance tomorrow,” Raine assured her.

“Then the rest of the money?”

Raine drew a deep breath and crossed her fingers. “Six months, maybe.” Maybe much longer if she could find the rest of the dino. If they brought the whole beast to auction at once, at least minimally cleaned so that bidders could see its opaline fire, it would take longer.

But then the sky would be the limit on what they could get. No, forget all limits; they’d shoot the moon. Lia would be set for life. “I know it’s hard, but it would really pay to be patient.”

“But how much would it pay? Why won’t you say this?”

“Because I don’t know,” Raine said, hanging on hard to her temper. “And anybody who claims to know what your tooth is worth—” Even if he’s tall, dark and toe-curlingly sexy “—would be lying. That’s why I’m recommending that we work on a percentage, rather than a flat fee.”

“How much would you pay me flat? Right here, right now?”

Raine ground her teeth. Okay, you want to be stupid? “I suppose…something in the range of a hundred thousand.” She could up that price if Cade matched it—but not by much, not for a single tooth.

“Hmm,” Lia hedged, for once at a loss for words.

“And I’ll buy your watch, as well,” Raine added. “Say an extra ten thou for that? What do you say, Lia?”

“I say…” Lia’s voice held a smirk. “That I have to think, most seriously.”

“That offer is good only for today, Lia.”

“Ohhh, you think so?” she crooned. “I bet you pay me that tomorrow, if I want it.” If Kincade didn’t offer her more tonight, is what she meant.

“You think so?” Raine echoed, extra dry. “Well, maybe—and maybe not. I guess we’ll just have to see, won’t we?” She grabbed the loose braid hanging on her shoulder and yanked it. Temper! If getting her dino required that she swallow her pride, then—“Look, there’s other options we could discuss. Why don’t I come over and—”





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