Cherry Adair - T-flac 09 (6 page)

Be careful what you wish for, he thought with annoyance. He’d wanted to be put back on active duty.

And here he was. Tailing a woman in a frigging
grocery
store. He felt like an ass carrying the little red plastic basket.

How damn hard would it be to have Shaw’s daughter answer one simple question?

Question: Where is your dirtbag father?

Answer: Argentina. Or Iraq. Or Bumfuck, Indiana.

Simple. No muss, no fuss.

Technically, his first attempt to meet her—the one where she’d summarily slammed the door in his face—wouldn’t happen until tomorrow. He’d reversed time—did a TiVo, as his brother Duncan liked to say, to give it another shot.

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Idiot. Of course she’d been scared. He’d heard it in her voice, and seen it clearly written on her face as she’d tried to close the door. Considering the people looking for her father, she should be freaking terrified. Heather had gone underground for a reason, and yet he’d tried to barge into her life as if he had the right to be there.

His lips twitched toward a smile. He guessed he was every inch the moron she’d called him.

Now that he understood her fear, Caleb had decided to shimmer back in time twenty-four hours.

Hoping he’d have more luck if he approached her on neutral territory. The grocery store was a good place.

But unfortunately, after chatting her up for less than a minute, he’d realized that Heather was nobody’s fool. She’d wanted nothing to do with him. She’d coolly blown him off and left the store without her basket of groceries.

If at first, he thought grimly as he watched her, you don’t succeed—go back in time ten minutes and try again. Third time lucky.

It had to be; he was running out of options.

Except all those jumps so close together had drained him. All she had to do to get rid of him this time was blow hard. The thought of her anywhere near him with her lips puckered almost made him pass out right there.

He shook his head. She was too rich for his blood. Her sticker price was
way
out of his league. She’d dated princes and dukes and captains of industry. She’d dined, and probably a whole lot more, with presidents and kings.

Of course, he mused, watching the gentle sway of her hips as she walked, who gave a damn who she’d had dinner with, when she was naked in bed under
him.

He almost groaned.
Not going to happen. Down boy.

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If he wasn’t here to extract the intel on her father’s whereabouts from her, Caleb would have turned around and walked away. Fast. There were dozens of excellent reasons to avoid this woman.

Besidesher high-society social circle.

Besidesher father’s association with some of the most powerful and dangerous tangos in the world.

Besidesher stratospheric D&B rating.

Beside all of
those
pesky little impediments there was an even bigger deterrent. He was Cursed. And he had no intention of starting something he knew he’d never finish.

No one had ever bucked the five-hundred-year-old family Curse, and he had no intention of trying.

Still, she had an astonishing effect on his libido. His attraction to her was intense, and more powerful than anything he’d felt before. He’d walked away from women who’d held less of a temptation than Heather Shaw.

But this was business. There was no walking away. Not until he had what he needed.

He hoped like hell he got the intel
fast.

She picked up a container of hothouse strawberries. She’d turn the plastic box over—like that—to check the bottom for bad ones, then she’d bring it to her nose and inhale—like that. Then she’d put it in her basket. Just like that.

Been here, done this.

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Caleb reversed direction as she proceeded through the produce section—the selection process would take her just over seven minutes—and walked slowly down a parallel aisle.

This time, he’d let
her
make the first move.

Heather walked around the end of the tower of soup cans on special, heading for the bread aisle. To hell with the inflated price of the hothouse strawberries, she was in the mood to celebrate tonight. The ripe red berries sat beside an enormous baking potato in the bottom of her basket.

She’d added another boutique to her list of customers for her jewelry, and they’d given her a nice-sized order on Friday.

When she’d run she’d taken all of her own and her mother’s jewelry with her.

The jewelry was far too recognizable to sell. The bracelets, necklaces, and rings were worth a large fortune, and had all been custom-made for her mother and herself. She and her French-born mother had been living trophies for her father to parade around to show his success and wealth to his “banking”

clients.

Each distinctive piece that Heather melted down and remade gave her a double thrill. She was at last using her skills as an artisan to make the simple, stylish jewelry she preferred, and supporting herself at the same time.

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It was a miserably cold and rainy day and there weren’t that many shoppers in the grocery store on a Sunday afternoon.

A couple of Girl Scouts and their mothers were huddled at a table outside the doors to the grocery store, and Heather decided to stop on her way out of the store and buy several boxes of Thin Mints to take home to aid her in her solitary celebration.

A good book, a hot cup of tea, and a box of cookies sounded perfect. And for dinner, a nice thick steak instead of one of the fancy recipes that required all her concentration. Maybe a glass or two of champagne—

“Want to arm wrestle for it?”

The deep voice, coming unexpectedly from directly behind her, made her jump. Slapping a hand over her racing heart, she spun around.

The man was broad shouldered and a good six or seven inches taller than she, and she was five seven.

Big,
she thought breathlessly. Lord, he smells good, was the next fleeting thought. Despite the chilly weather he wore nothing more than a black T-shirt, jeans, and running shoes. Droplets of rain sparkled in his short dark hair.

Incongruously, he held an empty red basket in one large hand. The smile that had been forming on his lips faded away as their eyes met. A surge of warmth went through her, and she had to swallow hard.

She had the strangest sensation of connection, and a strong sense of
déjà vu.
She didn’t know him, but there was something vaguely familiar about his face. The angle of his nose, that little scar bisecting his left brow seemed familiar.

His eyes were an attractive dark blue with a hint of teal, his lean face a little pale beneath his tan. There was absolutely nothing threatening about his stance or his expression. Thank God.

But he did look dangerous in a different way. Dangerous to women in general, she suspected. There was that pirate, bad-boy, heartbreaker aura about him that had her heart beating double-time in a purely female-to-sexy-male response. She dropped her maidenly hand from her chest, and took a step back
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anyway, feeling a ridiculous urge to reach out and finger-comb his wet hair and lick the drops of moisture from his skin.

She curled her needy fingers around the handle of her basket instead, and tilted her head to look at his face. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”

“The last loaf of honey wheat-berry bread?”

Puzzled, she glanced away from his smiling blue eyes to the shelf. One loaf of her favorite bread left.

“You were staring at it for a while,” he said gravely when she didn’t immediately respond. “Please. You take it.” He picked it up like a football and handed it to her. “I’d hate to think that those twelve children of yours would have to do without their breakfast tomorrow morning just because I wanted it for my solitary dinner tonight.”

“Seven.” When he looked blank, she clarified with a smile. “Seven children. Not twelve. Thanks.” She took the loaf and set it on top of the strawberries in her basket.

“Your husband’s a lucky man.”

“I tell him that every night when he helps the septup-lets with their trigonometry homework.”

He choked back a laugh. “Brave woman.”

No matter how strong the temptation to stay and play, Heather knew she had to nip the conversation in the bud. There wasn’t any room in her life for a man right now. Especially not one as tempting as this one.

A short lifetime ago, she would have enjoyed the zing of interest in the pit of her stomach, the way her breath caught and her heart stumbled. Meeting a guy with a bone-melting smile in a grocery store had never been one of her fantasies, but she could certainly run with it. An ache, purely sexual and totally
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unexpected, spread through her as her mind flashed a slideshow of possibilities. In mere seconds, she envisioned him in her bed, their bodies tangled in the sheets as he did magical and thrilling things to her.

With her. And she reciprocated.

Her fingers tightened around the handle of the basket.
Wow.
This was a first. Normally her thoughts on meeting a new guy ran toward a nice dinner, maybe taking in a show. She was the first to admit that it took her a long time to warm up to a guy, and even longer before she decided to sleep with him. But not with this man. No, her imagination had skipped the appetizer and main course, and gone straight to dessert.

Forget wheat-berry bread, she wanted sex. With him. Now.

But that was about as real a possibility as her faux husband and faux children. He thought she was brave? She nearly laughed aloud.

“You have no idea,” she told him honestly, and forced herself to raise a hand in farewell before turning away. Feeling the heat of his intense teal gaze on her back, Heather crossed the aisle for a jar of apricot jam.

She knew that he was behind her, that he was following her toward the jam he probably didn’t need.

As tempting as it had been to linger and spend a few more minutes flirting with him, it was better not to.

Loneliness wouldn’t kill her. And it wouldn’t be long before she was back to a life with a full social calendar and dozens of sexy guys vying to flirt, and more, with her.

The sensation of being watched was so strong, she slanted a glance behind her. He was standing in the middle of the wide aisle. Still there. He smiled, “Got ya,” and Heather couldn’t help smiling back. Just a smile.

She probably should have been nervous, but he wasn’t threatening. In fact, his presence felt warm and almost familiar at her back. Lord, it had been fun to flirt again. Even if it had only been for a couple of seconds. She used to be good at it. It was one more thing she missed. And couldn’t have.

The feeling would have to last her, she told herself firmly. She wasn’t out of danger. Not yet.

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She found her jam and continued down the grocery aisle without turning around, even though she sensed that the man had taken the hint and gone about his business. The knowledge depressed her and made her lonelier than ever.

Reining herself in, being something that she wasn’t, was wearing on her more than she’d realized.

Although she hadn’t been that crazy about her life before either.

Perhaps one day she could find something between a useless Barbie doll, jet-setting around the world from party to party, and a jewelry designer holed up in a one-room apartment with no social life at all.

There must be some sort of middle ground.

For twenty-six of her twenty-seven years she’d taken the path of least resistance. She’d played dress-up from the time she could balance a plastic tiara on her head and had never looked back. All she had to do to make people happy was smile, look attractive, and listen attentively.

She was the only child of wealthy, doting parents, who had never expected anything of her. She and her mother were—had been—close. But Heather was a little embarrassed by how badly she always wanted to please her father. She’d adored him, and knew he loved her. But he also judged her. And at her age it shouldn’t be so important to try to be what he wanted her to be.

Because what she’d ended up being was…shallow, and as useless as cotton candy.

Yet in the blink of an eye that had changed last March when she’d seen him standing over her mother’s lifeless body. The scene in their Paris salon that fateful Saturday afternoon had played through her mind like a stop-action movie for months.

It had been the accident her father had insisted it had been. Of course it had. Her parents were very fond of each other, and they’d never had a harsh word between them in thirty years of marriage.