By Hook or By Crook (25 page)

Pulling away from Pock, Daisy murmured, “You couldn’t make me stop loving you, no matter what you did. No one could.”

Unwilling to witness yet another Pock-and-Daisy make-out session, Ivy fled the kitchen, unnoticed this time, only to nearly collide with a hard male body in the hallway.

“Gah!” The gasp broke from her lips involuntarily.

Joe steadied her. The pressure of his hands through her coat felt good. God, what was wrong with her, that his touch through two inches of goose down could set her on fire?

“You okay?” The words were tender, solicitous—obviously referring to much more than a near-collision in the hallway. They made her want to cry.

“Yes, fine,” she said. When he looked past her to the kitchen, she shook her head in a warning. “Don’t go in there. They’re having sort of a...private moment.”

His brows shot up. “Oh, yeah?”

“Not
that
private. At least I don’t think so.” She shot a nervous look over her shoulder toward the kitchen. They
had
been pretty into each other—probably better not to go in there for a while.

“Come on.”

He steered her back down the hallway to the living room, to the couch they’d made love on last night. A flood of memories—intimate, hot, and wistful—came over her as she sat down, a foot away from him, feeling as fragile as glass. Her defenses were down, both from making love with him and from the scene she’d witnessed in the kitchen.

Dressed in a black corduroy shirt he’d picked up yesterday, his unvarnished masculinity called to something inside her. He leaned back and rubbed the sleep from his eyes.

Somehow, he seemed to have wrinkled the brand-new clothes already, and his hair was even messier than usual. Disheveled seemed to be his natural state. Still, he was gorgeous.

He wasn’t movie-star handsome, and he certainly didn’t bother much about his clothes or hair, but something about him drew her. Thinking of the many women he’d slept with and would no doubt sleep with in the future simply saddened her.

God, she had to get this business with Daisy and Pock wrapped up so she could get out of here and return to sanity. She gazed at the front of his shirt, wishing she had the right to slip her fingers between the buttons and explore the flat muscles there. She bit back a sigh as she realized what a hopeless mess she was.

“Damn, I wish I could get in there to get some coffee,” Joe said.

Ivy gestured with the half-empty cup of coffee in her own hand. “You can share mine,” she offered. “After last night—” She broke off abruptly. She had been about to make a weak joke that after last night they didn’t need to worry about sharing a mug, but just the mention of last night made him stiffen.

“Thanks,” he said, reaching to take the mug from her.

His fingertips brushed against the back of her hand as he did so, sending a shiver through her. He sipped from the same side of the mug she’d drunk from, Ivy noticed. She couldn’t quite tear her gaze away from the sight of his lips against the porcelain. His eyes never left hers, and she finally looked away, coloring slightly.

“So what’s up with Daisy and Pock?” he ventured.

Glad of the change of subject, Ivy seized on it. “He’s apologizing to her for getting us all mixed up in this. He says he did it to impress her.”

“Impress her?” Joe echoed.

“Yeah.” She paused, reluctant to explain something so deeply unflattering to herself, but she couldn’t mischaracterize Pock’s words. Maybe she was a snob, but she didn’t lie. “He got involved with Cantor to make money, which he thought he needed to impress Dad and me, and to win Daisy’s approval.” After a moment, she chuckled, a flat sound devoid of humor. “Little did he know, impressing Dad and me is no way to win Daisy’s approval.”

“I see.” He braced the mug of coffee on his knee.

Her fingers itched to follow the movement, sliding her hand down his muscled thigh and cupping his knee through the soft denim, but her hands remained properly in place, folded in her lap. She couldn’t make her emotions behave the way she wanted, but she could control her movements. For now. She clenched her hands in her lap to make sure.

“So what’s next?”

Ivy blinked in confusion.

“If Daisy and Pock are getting down in there, your plan to break them up isn’t working. What’s next?” he repeated. “You’re going to have to face your father eventually.”

His carefully neutral tone took some of the sting out of his blunt words. His green eyes fixed on the middle distance, not staring her down as he usually did when he confronted her.

She should be happy he didn’t want a fight. Somehow, though, it didn’t make her happy. The Joe she knew pulled no punches and came after her, calling her on whatever he had a problem with. That trait usually annoyed her, but now she missed it. Confrontation showed he cared. She wasn’t sure whether this polite non-stranger gave a damn about her or not.

She bit her lip, uncertain. “I know that Pock, for one, realizes how hard their life is going to be. I think maybe I have a better chance talking to him than to my own sister.”

“Turns out Daisy isn’t as amenable to your reasoning as you thought, hmmm?”

“I haven’t given up, and I’m not going to,” Ivy vowed. “Maybe I can reach him, since I can’t reach her. He understands he’s affected her life for the worse.”

He took another long pull on the coffee, and she watched his throat work as he swallowed. His lip shone with moisture, and she imagined leaning forward to brush it dry. Maybe he would take her fingertips into his mouth, teasing her with his tongue, nipping at her nails...

Between memories of last night and her overwhelming physical attraction to him, it didn’t take much to put her under a sensual spell. But instead of turning toward her, taking her into his arms, and taking her mouth, as she half-hoped he would, he lowered the mug to balance on the armrest of the couch and looked out the patio door with a carefully blank expression. He surely didn’t find snow
that
fascinating, so he must not want to look at her.

He did that a lot, she realized. He excelled at creating distance between them when he didn’t want to be reached.
This is how it feels to want something really, really bad that you can never have
, she thought. If she were Daisy, she would say it sucked, big-time.

She wasn’t Daisy, so she rose and walked away, waiting until she was safely alone in her room to let a few quiet tears fall.

****

Sprawled on the couch, staring at the chateau’s huge flat-screen TV, Joe clicked the remote from one channel to the next. Movies, reruns, news, talk shows, infomercials, and sports. He’d give his left nut for a Blackhawks game to take his mind off Ivy, but there wasn’t one on. He settled on a replay of an old college football bowl game, but the offense huddled and broke without him ever knowing what was going on. After a minute, he restlessly hit the Channel Up button again.

Damn that woman. He should write her off. This morning, padding around in her bare feet and her overpriced jacket, her eyes wide and mouth turned down, she should have been easy to resist. She’d nearly ping-ponged into him in the hallway, fresh from meddling in her sister’s life once again, and the realization should have made him angry.

Instead, he’d simply wanted to draw her into his arms, pull open that ridiculous puffy coat, and drag her down to the floor with him. Since their awkward morning encounter, they’d steered clear of each other. He’d hunkered down in the home theater, remote control in hand, and she’d been up doing God knows what—first puttering around in the kitchen and then in the library.

Why should he care what she did? She’d made her intention plain. Because she couldn’t seem to bring her sister around to her point of view, she would work on Pock instead. As dumb and malleable as Pock seemed to be, Joe figured she might be onto something there.

He didn’t care anymore. He had to get this mess resolved so they could get the hell out of here. Back in Chicago, he’d amp up his efforts to find other clients. The choke chain Richard Smithson had around his neck chafed, and anything that took him away from his maddening eldest daughter would be all for the best, too.

He’d settled on an old Jimmy Cagney movie when his cell phone rang. He didn’t recognize the number on the display.

“Hello?”

“Joe?”

The voice was Daisy’s. She and Pock had gone into town a few hours earlier to pick up some allergy meds. Something about all the cedar trees making Pock’s allergies flare up. He was in the wrong damn place for that. Here in the mountains, they were surrounded by the things. Had any tough guy ever been more ridiculous than Pock? Glancing at the time on his phone, Joe realized they’d been gone for three hours. A bit long for a pharmacy run.

“Yeah.”

“I think they’ve found us.” The fear in her voice left no doubt about who she meant.

His feet swung to the ground. “Where are you?”

“The Conrad,” she said, naming a mid-sized casino they’d passed the other night. “We thought it would be safe, but I think they’ve spotted us. Pock saw a guy that works for Cantor. He’s pretty sure he saw us, too. We ducked into an empty conference room on the second floor. I think we’ve lost them for now, but there’s no way for us to get out without them seeing us! We’ll have to walk right through the lobby, and I think Cantor’s got more than one guy here.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised. What the hell are you doing at the Conrad? What happened to the pharmacy?”

“Sorry about that. We came to the Conrad for the wedding chapel.”

Wedding chapel
. The phrase hung in the air for a long moment. It took a second for the implication to sink in.

“Jesus.” After a beat, he sighed. “So I suppose congratulations are in order?”

“Will you be the first to give us your blessing?” Daisy said with a nervous laugh.

Joe rubbed the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes for a moment. “I have to tell you, I don’t really see the point of bailing you out of this mess. When Ivy finds out you’ve married him, she’s going to kill you herself.”

“I was sort of hoping you’d talk her out of that,” Daisy admitted.

“Yeah, ’cause of course Ivy is putty in my hands.” Had anyone in the Smithson family not been put on earth expressly to make his life a living hell?

“Who are you talking to?” Ivy’s curious voice behind him had him spinning. Shit.

“Don’t put her on the phone!” Daisy said in a panic. “I can’t deal with that right now.”

“You can’t hide from her forever,” he reminded her. Much as he hated to admit it, he saw Ivy’s point about her sister. Most of the time, Daisy didn’t act like a grownup.

“Hide from whom?” Ivy queried. “Is that Daisy? Let me talk to her.”

She reached for the phone, but Joe twisted away from her. He quickly got instructions from Daisy on their location and ended the call.

“What was that all about?” Ivy asked, arms crossed in annoyance.

“It’s Daisy and Pock,” he said grimly. “They’re in a casino on the near north side of the lake. They think they’ve been spotted.”

“By Cantor? Wait, what are they doing in a casino? I thought they were going to a pharmacy.” Ivy’s face mirrored her confusion.

“One of Cantor’s goons spotted them,” he said, ignoring the last part of her question. “Damn it, why did I ever listen to you? I should have made you go back to Chicago as soon as we found Daisy. These guys have contacts everywhere.” He grabbed Ivy’s arm harder than he intended. “Come on. We can talk on the way.”

****

“Slide onto the floor, low as you can. Don’t come out until I tell you.”

Ivy unfastened her seat belt and obeyed without question. That much at least, she had learned within the past few days. Joe wouldn’t talk about his phone call with Daisy and Pock, but his anger didn’t bode well. She didn’t blame him for being angry. What had they been thinking, to slip away to a heavily populated casino just because they wanted to do some gambling? Casinos were magnets for criminal activity of every sort. They should have seen this coming. As soon as she knew her sister was safe, she’d give Daisy and Pock a lecture they wouldn’t soon forget.

Crouched on the floor of the SUV, Ivy felt the vehicle make a series of turns and then come to a stop.

Joe pulled out his cell phone and dialed. “We’re here,” he said tersely. “Can you get to the south side of the building? Look for a window you can climb out of. There’s one above the kitchen you might try. We’ll circle the building while you look.”

Ivy felt the SUV surge forward as he ended the call. Long moments went by as they drove aimlessly, and Ivy felt the muscles at the back of her thighs start to cramp.

“Can I get up yet?”

“No.”

“My legs are killing me,” she complained, shifting from side to side as she tried to stretch each leg in turn.

“Think about how pleasant a charley horse is compared to a bullet in your head.”

“I don’t see anybody shooting at you,” she pointed out.

“Yet,” he reminded her. “Dammit, where is that sister of yours? They should have been able to find the window by now.” On cue, Joe’s phone rang.

“Yeah? Can’t Pock break it down? Okay. I’ll look for it.” With a muffled curse Ivy couldn’t quite make out from beneath the dashboard, Joe ended the call and turned the vehicle sharply, bouncing Ivy’s head on the door.