Game for Anything (15 page)

In business, she knew that there was more than one way to negotiate a deal. Rule number one, you had to know your client. Well, she knew Tracker better than she had two days ago. For one thing, she knew he was leery of close relationships. Well, they had that in common. Having abandonment issues sucked. Number two, he was ashamed of his past. Well, she wasn't proud of everything she'd done, either. Number three, he thought she was out of his class.

Men. Turning off the shower, she wrapped herself in a towel and looked at herself in the mirror. Dream lovers were a lot easier to handle than real ones. They didn't reject you and they didn't frustrate you, or drive you crazy. Well, she'd gotten Tracker into her bed and she'd just have to figure out a way to keep him there. No holds barred.

And then there was still the other little problem of who was trying to kill her.

 

T
RACKER STARED
at the closed door of Sophie's bedroom. The hardest thing he'd ever done was to stand there and let her walk away. He couldn't ever recall experiencing this icy feeling in his gut or the fire in his heart. But he couldn't go after her. It was much better to let her believe what she was thinking—that their whole affair had just been a deception he'd used to protect her. It was the one sure way he could get her to safety. Then he'd be able to think straight and do his job.

Taking out his cell phone, he punched in numbers and made the necessary arrangements. The moment he was finished, his mind spun again with thoughts and images.

He'd hurt her, but she would recover. He'd never seen anyone who could bounce back the way Sophie could. And there wasn't any other way he could think of to play it. He had to push her away so that he could keep her safe. When she was around, she short-circuited his brain. She'd nearly been killed. If he lost her…

The terror he'd felt as he'd raced up the stairs after
that first shot came rushing back, forming an icy rock in his stomach. Even now, where the coffee had stained the floor, he could picture it as her blood, and he could see her body, lying beside it as still and lifeless as John Landry's had been. Tracker rubbed his hands over his eyes to erase the image.

When he turned, he saw that Natalie Gibbs and Chance had entered the apartment.

“I've got about twenty minutes before I have to get back to the gallery, and I've brought Detective Gibbs up to speed.”

Tracker spoke to Natalie. “I'm getting Sophie out of this. She'll stay at my place in the country until we catch the bastard who's behind this. I want you to be there with her.”

Natalie nodded.

“You won't get an argument from me,” Chance said. “I can't figure out what in hell's going on. If whoever is behind this wanted business as usual at the shop, why try to shoot Sophie in her apartment?”

“Good question,” Tracker said. If his mind hadn't been so full of Sophie, he would have been focusing on it himself. “Maybe he already has the coin, and he's just cleaning up the way he did in Connecticut.”

“Or he doesn't have the coin and he knows you're closing in,” Natalie said. “If that's true, then Sophie must pose a threat that's worth the risk of focusing attention on her shop.”

“She's got a point,” Chance said.

“Two points, actually,” Natalie corrected.

For the first time since he'd entered the room, Tracker felt his lips curving. Beneath the detective's
head-turning looks and designer clothes was a razor-sharp brain. “Ramsey was right about you. You're the perfect person to baby-sit Sophie.”

“You know, my ears start to ring something fierce when people talk about me behind my back,” Sophie said from behind him.

Though it was a struggle, Tracker managed not to wince as he turned to face her, but looking at her was a mistake. Whatever distance he'd managed to create while he'd been making his arrangements vanished the moment he saw her framed in the doorway of her bedroom. She stood in her bare feet, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, her hair still damp from the shower. How in hell could she manage to look vulnerable and regal at the same time? He let out the breath he hadn't been aware he was holding when she aimed her first question at Chance.

“Tracker mentioned that you're the man I
know
as Carter Mitchell. Mind telling me who you
really
are?”

Natalie Gibbs smothered a laugh, but Chance didn't miss a beat. “Your brother and Tracker know me as Chance, and Mitchell's as good a last name as any. Lately, I've been working freelance for insurance companies. John Landry was my partner on this case.”

As Sophie listened to Chance lay out everything, Tracker found his admiration for her growing. The only sign of tension was in her hands: her knuckles were growing whiter by the moment. Otherwise she might have been listening to a weather report. He knew how much of her energy and her heart had gone into creating her business, and it couldn't be easy to learn that someone had used it, used her, to smuggle
stolen goods into the country. And now that someone wanted her dead.

When Chance was done, she continued to aim her questions at him. She hadn't met Tracker's eyes or even glanced his way since she'd walked into the room. Odd that he found himself preferring a punch to the jaw over the cold shoulder.

“I still have one question,” Sophie said. “If Detective Gibbs is right, and whoever's doing this still doesn't have the coin, how does he think he can get it from the shop if I'm dead and it's closed?”

“There's an inside man,” Tracker said.

Sophie whirled on him. “Not Noah.”

“It doesn't have to be Noah,” Natalie Gibbs said.

Three people turned to study her.

“It could be someone who felt they could get access to the pieces through Noah. Anyone who's a good customer could probably handle him. That would include Chris Chandler and any of his clients. With you out of the way, Noah wouldn't be thinking straight. The person behind this might see that as his safest path to the goods.”

“Which leaves us with our original suspect list,” Chance said. “And we don't know where the coin is.”

“I think I can help you there,” Sophie said as she disappeared into the bedroom. A moment later, she returned with a small bottle and some cotton balls. “Nail polish remover,” she said. “It's great for deactivating glue.”

Her next stop was the couch. Leaning over Natalie Gibbs and Chance, she removed one of the horses and
set it on the coffee table. Then she knelt down and began to work on the foil seal at the base of the statue.

“I could be wrong, but this horse came in yesterday's shipment, and I decided that I wanted to add it to my collection. I brought it up here directly from the truck.”

Tracker stared at Sophie, and as she met his eyes, he cursed himself.

“If someone had just filled me in,” Sophie continued, “I might have figured it out sooner.”

When the foil came free, she held the hole in the base up to eye level. “There's something in there. It's taped just inside.”

“Let me see.” Chance leaned closer. “Yeah. I think we've struck pay dirt.”

From the triumphant look Sophie sent him, Tracker knew that his plan to send her off to the country was not going to run as smoothly as he'd hoped.

 

D
URING THE TIME IT TOOK
them to get the coin out of the horse, Sophie's mind was racing.

“Pretty little thing, isn't it?” Chance asked.

“It doesn't look like it's worth killing anyone over,” she said.

“According to the legend, the three coins were cast a few millennia before Christ, and they were one of a kind—one for the ruler of each of three cities along the Mediterranean. As long as each ruler held on to the coin, the cities would prosper. But greed sprouted its ugly head, and they began to steal the coins from one another, the theory being that if one brought prosperity, two or three would bring even more. Some
scholars theorize that the first one to lose his coin ruled Atlantis.”

“Why go to the trouble of secreting them in statues and vases? They couldn't be that hard to smuggle, could they?” Sophie asked.

“Passing them through shops makes them much harder to trace,” Chance pointed out. “Plus I think the Puppet Master likes the thrill of playing the game. This way he gets to manipulate people, like puppets.”

“And he kills them,” Tracker said. “My guess is that he enjoys that part, too.”

“But why me?” Sophie asked. “Of all the gin joints in all the world, why did he pick One of a Kind?”

Suddenly, Tracker's eyes narrowed. “She's right. There has to be a specific reason he picked One of a Kind. The first coin was shipped to Connecticut, and something went wrong there. He had to burn the shop down. So maybe he chose a store in Georgetown because it's convenient. He may want to supervise his puppets personally this time. Sophie, you could unwittingly know the man we're after. And that's why he's trying to kill you.”

“I can't imagine that I know him, but I know something about this horse. The vase Jayne Childress picked up was created by the same artist. I can even give you his name.”

Chance let out a low whistle. “We knew about the shop. Landry hooked up with you there. But we didn't know about the artist. I'm going to have to make a phone call on that one. He could be in on it.”

Sophie kept her eyes steady on Tracker's as she felt
her anger building. Ruthlessly, she clamped down on it. He'd be expecting temper, and so she wouldn't give him that. She'd give him cool logic. “If I'd been informed of what was going on, I wouldn't have taken the horse up to my apartment yesterday. Maybe Landry would still be alive.”

In the silence that followed her statement, she rose and moved until she stood toe to toe with Tracker. “And if you think you're going to pack me off to the country while you and Chance catch the smuggler all by yourselves, you'll be making an even bigger mistake.”

“You're going to the country.”

She lifted her chin. “You can send me there. But I think Detective Gibbs's talents could be used more effectively if she didn't have to
baby-sit
me. And what about my talents? If your theory is right and I can somehow recognize this Puppet Master character, you need me here.”

“Damn it, Sophie. I want you out of this, so I can think. I can protect you at my place.” He gestured to the window. “Don't you get it? I can't protect you here.”

It was the flash of fear in his eyes that allowed her to keep from punching him again. Instead, she drew in a deep breath. “Since we can't settle this in a rational discussion, there's only one other option.” She pulled the two-headed coin out of her pocket. “Heads, I go to the country—but you're my baby-sitter, not Detective Gibbs.”

Tracker's eyes narrowed. “And tails?”

Her brows lifted. “Tails, I agree to go with Detective Gibbs, of course.”

“And you'll stay there?”

“Of course.”

For a moment, the apartment was so silent they could hear the sound of a drill being used in the store below.

“Okay. Toss the coin.”

She flipped it, caught it and showed him. “Heads. I guess you and I are going to the country.”

T
RACKER HAD SLIPPED
totally into protective mode. They'd been driving for more than half an hour and he'd spoken barely three words to her.

Once she'd won the coin toss, he hadn't wasted any time making the arrangements to get her out of D.C. They'd been picked up by one of his security people, and then after some tricky driving to lose any possible tails, they'd stopped in an underground garage to switch to another car—a sleek silver convertible.

She shot him a quick sideways glance. In profile, he wore the grim, fixed expression of a warrior. Five or six hundred years ago, he would have ridden a huge, black stallion into battle. Today, she could easily have imagined him in some no-nonsense, all-terrain vehicle, or maybe a tank. She glanced at the white leather interior of the car. This was the first hint she'd had that Tracker McBride had a smoother, slicker James Bond side to his character.

For a while, his meticulously thought-out arrangements had brought back the reality of what had been happening at her shop—smuggling, bullets and death. Now, with the wind blowing through her hair and sunlight pouring down, she wanted to push it out of her mind for a while.

What easier way to do that than to concentrate on the man beside her? How was she going to snap him out of professional mode and get her lover back? Grace Kelly had had a much easier time of it when she'd lured Cary Grant into the hills of Monte Carlo.

As they rounded a curve in the road, Sophie glanced through the window and saw a valley open up below. Fields of green and brown formed a patchwork design that was bisected by a pencil-thin ribbon of silver. “Stop.”

“Not yet. There's a better view up ahead.”

To her surprise, Tracker pulled onto a narrow dirt road that wound its way up a hill. Trees blocked her view of the valley until they reached a clearing. Only then did he pull the car onto the grass verge and stop. A few feet away from the edge the ground fell away, and she could see the road they'd traveled up and the valley below. Getting out of the car, she moved close to the fence that bordered the drop-off. She wasn't even aware that Tracker had followed her until he said, “It's one of my favorite places.”

“No wonder,” she murmured. “It's…breathtaking. I love to be up high, looking out over things.”

“Yeah. I figured that.”

When she shot him a questioning look, he said, “Lucas told me that as a kid you spent most of your time in that tree house on the Wainwright estate.”

“It gave me such a sense of freedom,” she said. “I always thought nothing could touch me there.”

“And now you find that freedom in your shop. You can be yourself there.” He reached out a hand and twisted a strand of hair around his finger. “We're go
ing to find out who's behind the smuggling and murders. You'll be safe again, I promise.”

His gentle gesture and his understanding moved through her. “I thought you were annoyed with me.”

“No. I'm angry with myself. I shouldn't be here. I should be back at the shop overseeing everything.” He let out a frustrated breath. “I should never have let you toss that coin.”

“I didn't give you much choice.”

His eyes narrowed, darkened. “No. You've been narrowing my choices ever since I met you.”

Progress,
she thought. Her plan was to narrow them even more. “Since we're stuck here together on the flip of a coin, you could stay angry with yourself and I could worry about my shop, or we could honor our original bargain and resume our no-holds-barred affair. What do you say?”

She saw a mix of emotions move across his face before he could stop them. Desire, need, but she also saw surprise. It hit her quite suddenly that he'd actually expected her to just walk away from him. Could he really be as afraid of that as she was?

 

T
RACKER TRIED DESPERATELY
to clear the jumble of thoughts and feelings from his mind. He hadn't expected, hadn't thought… He'd hurt her by deceiving her, and he hadn't expected forgiveness, let alone this. She was offering him everything he wanted, and all he had to do was reach out and take.

She tapped her foot. “Do I have to toss the coin again?”

The Princess was back, and he couldn't prevent a smile. “No. My luck could turn. We'll stick to our original deal.”

She gave him a brief nod, then dug into the pocket of her jeans. “You could use a few lessons in going with the flow. Here.”

He glanced down at the card she was holding—good for one quickie on demand.

“I didn't have time to pack the other stuff.” She gave him an accusing look. “You didn't give me time.”

Even back at her apartment, when he'd hurt her, she'd intended to continue their affair. While the thrill of it moved through him, she started tapping her foot. “Well?”

“Right here?” he asked.

“Right now.”

What he saw in her eyes had all of his doubts and even his surprise streaming away. All that was left was the raw need that had been building inside of him from the first moment he'd seen her. She was here. She was his. And he wanted her more than he wanted to breathe. “Car or grass?”

“Both.”

“Good idea.”

The sound of her laugh, low and throaty, tore at his control as he pulled her to him. Cupping her hips, he drew her up until her legs were clamped around him. He framed her face with his hands, holding her still while he savored the way her body fit so perfectly against his, center to center, heat to heat.

“Kiss me, now,” she said.

He couldn't have stopped himself. Pulling her closer, he covered her mouth with his. It seemed like years since that flavor had poured through him—sweet, tart, Sophie. He'd nearly convinced himself that he'd never have it again, never have her again. He
drew back long enough to drag in air and then took his mouth on a desperate journey along the line of her jaw and down her throat.

“I want you. On the grass, on the car.” Each word she whispered against his skin was punctuated with a a kiss or a bite. “Again and again.”

As the images and possibilities filled his mind, what little blood hadn't drained out of his head began to drum. Turning, he staggered toward the car.

“Quick.” She moved her hips against him. “Now.”

He nearly dropped to his knees before he made it to the car and set her on the hood. Then he fought through her clothes, pulling her T-shirt off and her bra. Unsnapping her jeans, he found her skin, hot, damp and trembling. For him. The heat building inside of him was so huge, he felt as if he were melting. Leaning down, he pressed his mouth against her abdomen as he dragged her jeans and panties down her legs. Her hips arched toward him as he nuzzled her skin, moving until he tasted her hot, sweet center. He lingered there, keeping his tongue on her, in her, until she cried out his name and shattered.

Blindly, he groped for the snap of his jeans and pulled them down.

“I want you inside me,” she stated.

He entered her then—but not fully, not yet. Slowly easing her back against the hood of the car, he braced his arms and leaned over her. Then he drove himself into her all the way.

“More,” she said, arching against him even as her eyes drifted shut.

“Look at me, Sophie.”

She opened her eyes.

He withdrew almost completely, then thrust into her again. “Say my name. Tell me you want me.”

“T.J.,” she said. “I want you.”

For a moment, he held himself still. If this was all he could ever have, he would take it. He would make it be enough. Even as he began to thrust into her again and again, he recognized that it was a lie. He would never have enough.

He knew the moment her climax began. Her inner muscles gripped him as if she never intended to let him go. He surrendered then, driving hard and deep until the whole world seemed to darken around him.

 

W
HEN SHE WAS BACK
in touch enough with reality to remember that she was lying on the hood of a sports car, with Tracker still on top of her and inside of her, Sophie couldn't prevent a smile.

“What?” Tracker murmured.

Turning her head, she looked into his eyes. “I was just thinking that Alfred Hitchcock always forgot to put this scene into his movies. But it was the fifties and there was a lot of censorship back then.”

He rubbed a finger over her mouth. “I can never predict the odd paths your mind takes.”

“Odd?”

He kissed her then, hard. “Intriguing.” Drawing back, he studied her for a moment. “You're not what I expected you to be.”

He looked a little wary about it, she thought. Tough. But it was hard to muster up much dignity or annoyance when you were spread-eagle on the hood of a
car. Finally, she said, “You're not what I expected, either.”

“I'm not?”

She shook her head. “We have a lot more in common than I thought. We like the same old movies, we're both neat, we like to drive fast little convertibles and we're both very competitive.”

“We're still very different in some crucial ways.” His voice had gone flat.

“We won't know until we get to know each other better.”

“I can feel a game of twenty questions coming.”

He sounded so resigned that she had to smile. “How about if we put the penalty rule back in place?”

He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “How about a lunch break first?”

She grinned at him. “Oh. Are we all done here?”

Laughing, he kissed her nose before he levered himself up and lifted her off the hood. “How about you give me the coupon so that I can use it later? The grass has rocks, and I'm not sure the hood of my car can withstand another round.”

When they were finally dressed and in the car, Tracker surprised her by heading up the narrow lane instead of back down to the road. “What are you going to do? Catch fish for lunch? Or shoot a bird?” she asked archly.

The scents hit her before they rounded the curve: horses and flowers. Then she saw it and stared. The house, a contemporary tumble of squares and triangles, sat on the crest of the hill. The trees were thinner here. The top story of the house jutted above the tops of them and sun glinted off the glass. To the left, a sleek,
low building in the same weathered wood as the house was tucked behind a paddock. Two horses, one a black stallion and the other a palomino, raced toward the fence and then cantered alongside it, keeping pace with Tracker's car.

“What is this place?” Sophie asked. It didn't look like a guest house or a hotel.

Tracker pulled the car to a stop and turned to her. “This is my place in the country.”

Sophie stared at him. “You have horses?”

“Two. The black stallion is Pluto, and the mare is Persephone.”

She glanced at the house and then at him. “You've definitely got a much fancier tree house than I do.”

He laughed, then he took her hand, turned it over and kissed the palm.

“I'm going to keep on convincing you that we have a lot more in common than you think, T.J. McBride. But right now, I want to meet the horses. Who takes care of them when you're working in the city?”

“Jerry's racing down the steps right now to meet you.”

Sophie turned back to the house in time to see a small man with the thin, wiry build of a jockey striding across the lawn. She felt as if she were being sized up quite thoroughly while Tracker made the introductions, and when Jerry extended his hand, he didn't smile. “Welcome, Miss.” He gave her a little salute and then he was hurrying away across the lawn.

“Jerry's shy, especially with women,” Tracker explained. “But he's a good cook, and he's excellent with horses. Would you like to go for a ride?”

“I thought you'd never ask.”

 

H
E POURED CHAMPAGNE
into two crystal flutes, handed one to his companion, then held his up to the light. Bubbles shot upward through the pale golden liquid.

“I haven't handled the matter we spoke of yet,” his companion said. “The marksman I hired missed.”

“I trust you'll rectify the error.”

“Yes.”

He smiled and gestured toward the table. “Shall we then?” As they took their places at the chessboard, the phone rang.

Setting his champagne down, he pressed the button of the speakerphone. “Yes?”

“I know exactly where it is.”

The Puppet Master let the silence stretch. “You know where it is, but you don't have it?”

“You don't understand. I can tell you exactly—”

“Silence.”

The babbling on the other end of the line immediately ceased. He waited then, occupying himself by taking a sip of the champagne. The only sound in the room was the harsh breathing pouring out through the speakerphone. Fear was a powerful weapon, and he enjoyed wielding it.

“Now, if you have control of yourself, you may continue.”

“I would have it for you, but someone shot at her.”

When he spoke, he spoke very slowly. “Excuses only annoy me. If you want to redeem yourself for today's failure, you may have until tomorrow to deliver the item to my representative.”

“I'll take care of it. I promise you. And then that's it. We'll be even?”

“That's right, my friend. I won't need you anymore.”

He replaced the phone and faced his companion across the chess game. “He'll have to be eliminated.”

“Of course. He's a weakling.”

For a moment he studied his companion. He saw a greed and a ruthlessness that nearly matched his own, and that was rare. He'd chosen this puppet well, and the game they'd played had been exciting, exhilarating almost. Too bad it would have to end as soon as Sophie Wainwright was dead. “You'll handle Ms. Wainwright?”

“No later than tomorrow. I'm trying to trace her location right now.”