Tag, You're It! (15 page)

Apparently that hadn't always been the case.

He held up the item he'd found in her satchel, a photo of Alex decked out in full Miss USA regalia, a stalking mounlion by her side. " 'Beauty Queen Crusades for Beasts,'
National Geographic
, October 2004," he read off the cover. "No wonder you went to such trouble to hide it from me when you showed it to the librarian—not that I realized you were hiding it."

She stopped in the act of pawing through her duffel, just her head turning. Her gaze shifted from the magazine to his face, and her temper went from zero to fuming. "You went through my things? Never mind, stupid question. You've invaded every other part of my life, why not my privacy?"

"I was going to look at the maps and I pulled this out of your satchel by accident." He gave her a once-over. "Is this woman in there somewhere? Or have you killed her off entirely?"

"You should be glad it's me. You couldn't even get close to that woman." Alex plucked the magazine out of his hand and stuffed it away. "I'm not ashamed of my pageant days," she said, and if her voice was tightly controlled, he thought he'd seen her shoulders relax at least a little. "I kept it to myself because it was hard enough to get respect from the people in Casteel. A woman with a career, living alone in the woods, is strange enough to them. Add in beauty queen and it would've been hell."

Tag didn't say anything. He didn't have to.

"See? You're thinking about it, aren't you?"

"Trust me, I have no illusions about who you are and who I'm going to bed with."

"Just the going to bed part is an illusion," she said.

More along the lines of a fantasy, Tag thought. One that kept getting better and better. He hated to admit it, but she was right about the Miss USA thing—beauty, a killer body, and purity, the kind of combination that made every straight man want to do her, and every other man want to be her. Tag might've tried the former if he'd thought there was any chance she'd say yes. And if it wouldn't have proven her right.

"When is the food going to get here?" she asked. "I'm starving."

Tag shrugged, contemplating gravity, his eyes on the top of her sheet.

"You're still thinking about it" she accused.

"I'm sorry, all right? I can't help it. The whole Miss USA thing caught me off guard."

"You don't sound sorry. You sound angry. And I told you at the cabin," she reminded him. "It's your own fault you didn't believe me."

"You said it like it was a joke."

"Because it was a joke. Not the pageant. Me being Miss USA. I did it for all the wrong reasons, and when I figured that out, I stepped down. Unfortunately that was after I got engaged to the biggest ass on this continent or any other. I dumped him right after I dumped the title. I thought I was doing him a favor, since it was the title he wanted to marry in the first place, that and…" She ran both hands through her choppy hair, flashed him a look, dismayed and slightly embarrassed to have said more than she'd intended. "I went back to college where I belonged, got my PhD, and came out here, and that's all I'm going to say about it."

Perfect timing, since a knock signaled the arrival of their meal. Tag was doing a pretty good job of behaving himself, but the waiter wasn't quite as immune to Alex's bedsheet, so Tag hustled him out of the room, shuttling the food to the table himself.

Alex took the silver dome off her dinner, barely paying attention when Tag did likewise. She dug in, eating with the same kind of disinterest she'd show tossing logs into her fireplace. And when she was full, she stopped. She didn't toy with the food, didn't pick at the remnants. She shoved her plate away and sat back.

To Tag, eating was like sex. Both were sensual experiences not to be rushed through.

He'd been attracted to Alex from the moment he set eyes on her—or at least since the moment he remembered setting eyes on her. She was a striking, physically appealing, and self-confident woman, and he'd never doubted that sex with her would be an intense experience. But he was beginning to wonder if the reality would live up to the advertising. She kept herself so tightly controlled, he wasn't sure she'd be able to let go.

And then he took the cover off the dessert tray and something came over her face he'd never seen before. Desire. Pure, intense, unadulterated longing.

"What's that?" she asked.

"Chocolate mousse." He poured her a glass of wine, and she picked it up and chugged it without taking her eyes off the two little glass dishes in the center of the table.

Tag chose one, spooned some up and put it in his mouth, watching her eyes follow the spoon. "Not having dessert?" he asked, taking another bite. "Or would you rather just watch?"

She looked away, but when he deliberately clinked the spoon against the glass she flinched. And Tag smiled. It had been impulse, really, an afterthought that had him ordering dessert. "You told me to order whatever I wanted."

Alex shrugged.

"You had a stash of candy bars at your cabin."

More shrugging, still no looking.

"You must like chocolate, so why are you turning your nose up?"

Her head turned, and she started to say something bitchy. Tag shoved a spoonful of mousse in her mouth.

Her eyes closed, her head fell back, her breath came out on a long, moaning sigh, and Tag didn't wonder anymore if having sex with her would be amazing.

She took her time, savoring that single mouthful of chocolate like it was all the pleasure she'd ever need. It was Tag who wanted more.

If she looked like that, and he felt like this, after just one spoonful, he didn't know if he could survive watching her take another taste, especially sitting all the way across the table from her. But he'd never been very good at self-denial. He slid the other bowl across the table; Alex met him halfway, clamping a hand around his wrist.

"I don't think this is a good idea," she said. Her voice was even smokier than usual; her eyes, when she lifted them to his, were dark, sexually hazed, and slightly crazed. Quite the turn-on.

"I'm going to take a shower," he said, almost as surprised to hear those words come out of his mouth as she was. He didn't mind shocking her, but that wasn't why he'd said it.

He took his turn in the bathroom, and okay, he had to run the water cold. But he knew he'd been right to hold off when he came out and found Alex pacing, keyed up, needing to work off some energy and looking for a handy way to do it. He didn't want to be handy. They were going to hook up sooner or later. He'd be damned if he gave her a built-in excuse to blow it off the morning after, and it was clear as glass that to Alex chocolate was the same thing as getting drunk.

"I'm turning in," he said, getting into bed before she could notice that the cold shower was wearing off.

"I'm not tired."

"No problem. Just keep it down, if you don't mind."

"Sure," Alex said, and then she added cracking her knuckles to her pacing routine. She turned on the television, shut it off, and continued to prowl the room, opening drawers and checking the closets.

"What are you doing?"

"Looking for something to read."

"I thought you were going to be quiet."

"That was quiet."

He gave her an oh-right look.

"I'm doing my best."

"Your best sucks," Tag said. "It wouldn't have anything to do with the chocolate, would it?"

"You know it does," she said. "You knew it when you shoved that dish over in front of me, and now I'm all…" She waved her hands, "Nervy."

"Nervy?"

"Worked up."

"And nowhere to go with it?"

She was still wearing the sheet, pacing back and forth again, her bottom lip caught between her teeth.

Tag nearly jumped out of bed and took over for her.

"Does this hotel have an exercise room?"

He looked at the clock, trying to hold on to the ragged ends of his self-control. "Probably closed by now."

"I don't suppose you have any other suggestions?"

"You could go for a walk."

"Hmmmm. I hear chocolate is an aphrodisiac," she said.

His gaze tangled with hers. "I've heard that too."

"I could be convinced—"

Tag was out of bed, his mouth on hers before she could finish the sentence. She kissed him back wildly, her teeth nipping at his bottom lip before she gave him the heat and softness of her mouth. Her hands rushed over him, tearing his shirt from him pants and burrowing underneath.

He bore her back to the bed, rolled her underneath him, and staked her wrists to the mattress. He wanted some skin left on his back when they were through.

"You have a condom?" she asked, her breath coming in hot little pants, her eyes frantic on his.

"We won't have to worry about it if I can't get through this sheet," Tag said.

Alex shoved him away, whipped the sheet off, and tugged him back down before he could get a really good look at her.

"Condom?"

"Don't have any."

She shoved him off again.

"The guys on the plane took my wallet. You're not on the pill?"

"I live in the middle of nowhere. Alone."

And she was armed, Tag thought. He sat up on the edge of the bed and reached for the phone.

"What are you doing?"

"Calling the concierge."

She slammed her hand down on the phone.

"No, you're not."

"Somebody in this hotel has to have a condom."

"And what? You're going to go door to door and ask all the Gold Rush conventioneers? Not happening."

"I could get dressed and hit the nearest drug store."

Alex sighed. "Don't bother."

Tag reached for her.

She pulled the sheet back around her. "That's not happening, either."

"Then how are you going to work off all that energy?"

Alex reached over and opened the drawer in the bedside table. Out came the Bible.

"Do you really think that'll stop me?"

"Let's see, your name is Donovan… Yeah, I think this will work."

ALEX WAS UP HALF THE NIGHT. SO WAS TAG. TOO bad it was for different reasons. And in different ways. Alex spent some time pacing, some more time poring over the maps and muttering to herself. She finally collapsed facedown on the bed, forgetting she'd intended to sleep in the chair.

Tag never got to sleep.

About the time dawn began to show through the curtains he pulled on his clothes and skulked out of the room, staying quiet more to keep in practice than anything else. He could have ridden an elephant around the place and not roused Alex.

He exited the hotel and made a beeline for the nearest drug store. He wasn't spending another night like the last one; if Alex got within a foot of chocolate again, he intended to be prepared.

He should have brought his Ruger instead. Condoms weren't a whole lot of protection against the occupants of the long black car that pulled up to the curb just as he was getting back to the hotel. The rear door of the car opened from the inside; the man in the backseat was hired muscle, from the shoulder holster under his cheap suit coat to the clutch piece strapped to his ankle.

"Hey, Mick," Tag said, showing the small of his back and both ankles to save himself the public pat-down. He didn't want to give the Gold Rush attendees the wrong idea about his personal preferences. Not getting shot by Mick was a pretty strong inducement, too.

When Mick nodded, Tag ducked into the back and closed the door behind him. "Where's Franky?"

"Franky still ain't walking too good."

Alex didn't do anything halfway, even by accident. Tag would have been amused, if they'd left it at that. "That why you pulled a knife on her? Getting even?"

"Knife?" Mick looked over at him, expression flat. "Nobody pulled a knife. We just threatened her, like we was told. So you could save her."

"I got held up by some old man with a thousand quesabout the treasure. Lost sight of her."

Mick snorted, turned forward again. "She did a pretty good job of saving herself."

"She has a habit of doing that," Tag muttered, mostly because his mind was racing, trying to make sense of this new information. Since there wasn't a lot to go on, he came up woefully short.

Somebody had attacked Alex; he'd been expecting that, which was why he'd been following her. But apparently he'd missed the fake attack and stumbled onto a real one. "You don't know who the other guy was?" he asked Mick.

"Nope."

"Any guesses?"

"Nope."

Shit. This just got better and better. The logical culprit was Junior. When Alex had refused to throw in with him that first morning in town, he must've decided to take her out. But how far out, Tag wondered? Would he have been satisfied with Alex hurt and out of commission so she couldn't guide anyone else? Or had he wanted her dead?

Tag unclenched his fists, fought to think through the need to feel Junior's scrawny little throat between his hands. There were holes in the theory, he told himself. The scent of buried treasure did strange things to othernormal people. Not that the people in Casteel were all that normal, and the strangers flocking the town ran the gamut from the mildly opportunistic to the downright criminal-minded. Any one of them could have gone after Alex. Or Tag might be about to come face-to-face with the culprit.

The car pulled up in front of the Brown Palace, no surprise since it was arguably the best hotel in Denver. The place had been built in the nineteenth century, and it was everything a shallow, appearance-conscious, greedy son-of-a-bitch could want. Old, exclusive, and expensive.

Still fuming, Tag got out of the car, following Mick inside and through the lobby. Mick would have made a satisfying target, too, but he was no more than a loaded gun, and Tag already knew whose finger was on that trigger. He wanted the fist around the knife handle.

"You coming?" Mick was holding the elevator when Tag looked up. "He don't like to be kept waiting."

Tag hopped on, no choice but to care what "he" liked. If he wanted to clear this case, he had to stop focusing on what might have happened to Alex. She was alive, and if he was going to stay that way long enough to see what kind of hangover chocolate left behind, he needed to pull back into the moment, to focus on what would face him when he got off the elevator.

There were three Presidential Suites in the Brown Palace. Mick led Tag to one of them, knocked politely, then opened the door. For a snake's den, it looked pretty harmless. Including the man seated at the table, having breakfast.

He was decked out in what he probably thought was a rich man's morning attire—if the rich man was Tony Curtis forty years ago. A crisp white ascot was tucked between the lapels of his dark blue paisley silk robe, which was belted over silk pajamas and fleece-lined leather slippers. A square jaw, blue eyes, and thick blond hair, swept dramatically back from a high forehead, completed the Hollywood looks.

Women would find him attractive, at least any woman who didn't look close enough to see his perpetual sneer of superiority. Anyone who wasted the time getting to know him would find him vain, self-indulgent, self-aggrandizing, petty, and vindictive. For starters.

Tag had known Bennet Harper all of five minutes before he'd pegged him as the kind of man it would be easy to write off as all talk. That would be a mistake, because Harper was just smart enough to cause real trouble. Tag was barely-living proof of that.

Harper sat at a table set with fine china, silver-domed dishes, and a single red rosebud in a crystal vase. He didn't offer Tag a seat or a cup of coffee; he barely flicked him a glance, just shifted his gaze long enough to let Tag know he'd been noticed so he'd understand that he was being kept standing there like the hireling Harper thought he was.

After a few moments Harper folded his paper and laid it precisely next to his coffee cup. He smoothed the lapels of his robe and took a sip of coffee, making a face. He held the cup out in Mick's direction, but he looked at Tag.

Mick jumped to refill the cup. Tag just stared back.

Harper gave it another thirty seconds, tried a scowl that still didn't produce instantaneous groveling, and finally said, "I'm waiting for a progress report."

It might be the wrong approach to take, and it was definitely petty, but Tag wasn't going to be toady. "What makes you think I'm still working for you after you threw me out of that plane?"

"It was necessary to create an… illusion. For Alexandra's sake."

"You almost created a corpse," Tag pointed out, not missing the way he called Alex by her full name.

Harper waved the notion off, his diamond pinkie ring— yet another affectation—sparkling in the sunlight streaming in the window. "You were perfectly safe, and I imagine she felt a great deal of sympathy toward you."

"She felt a great deal of suspicion," Tag said, careful to keep his tone just on the respectful side of mockery. Not wise to forget he needed Harper, at least until he found out what this treasure hunt was really all about. "She still doesn't entirely trust me. Even after the plane came back and shot at me a second time. And the firebombing, and the snowmobile attack."

"As you said, Alexandra takes a lot of convincing."

She took a hell of a toll, too, Tag thought, glancing over at Mick. "Who took the tranquilizer dart, you or Franky?"

Mick didn't have anything to say—until Harper looked at him. "Franky," Mick said, adding for his boss's benefit, "when we came at her on the snowmobiles she shot at us with a tranq gun."

"And you chose not to tell me."

"You didn't want us getting too close anyway, and it gave us an excuse to let them go, so I thought—"

"I don't pay you to think."

Mick snapped his mouth shut, jaw knotted, not liking his boss very much.

"Then there was the kidnap attempt in Casteel," Tag said, deliberately inflaming the situation.

"My spies told me she was still refusing to guide you," Harper said.

"She was, and being shoved into an alley and threatened by two men helped change her mind, but I think the knife attack was overkill."

Harper whipped around, pinned Mick with another look.

"That wasn't us, Mr. Harper. We threatened to kidnap her, just like you wanted, and then we let her go. It must've been that little French twerp. I told Donovan that in the car."

And Tag had believed Mick. What he'd really wanted to see was Harper's reaction to the news, and it was pretty telling.

"She's all right?" he asked, sitting forward, hands clenched around the arms of his chair. He wasn't a good enough actor to convincingly simulate breathing, let alone this kind of shock and anger. And the concern was definitely genuine.

"Yeah," Tag bit off, not as immune to the memory as he would've liked to be. "I tackled him and Alex wound up with a gash on her leg. Not serious though."

Harper straightened his robe, his eyes going cold again. "That was clumsy of you, Mr. Donovan," he said.

"It could've been a whole lot worse if the person holding the knife was serious." It still didn't follow that it was one of Junior's men, but the assumption fit Tag's purposes. "It was stupid of Dussaud, and since you hired him you need to call him off. It'll be hard enough to find the treasure as it is. You keep throwing roadblocks up in front of me and you can kiss it good-bye."

"That sounds like a threat."

"I've got the map."

Harper sat back in his chair, hands steepled, the picture of calm and deliberation—if you didn't know there was a spoiled little boy underneath the slick exterior. A spoiled, game-playing little boy. "I heard Dussaud had managed to lose the map in that sorry little town… what was it called?"

"Casteel," Tag said. "Alex and I stole it, right after your two geniuses failed."

Harper sent Mick a look, clearly not happy.

"What I don't get," Tag continued, "is why you gave it to him in the first place if you were going to have your men steal it back."

"I have my reasons, just as you had your reasons for robbing Dussaud."

"I told Alex there was a map," Tag said slowly, trying to figure out what he was missing. Why, he asked himself, would Harper go to such lengths to bring Alex into this idiocy and then make it more difficult for her to find the treasure? "She wouldn't hook up with me without it."

"And no doubt she insisted you come to Denver to re-search it. I expected as much—just as I expected you to give in to her."

"You made it clear she's a necessary participant, and she won't do this unless we do it her way. She's pretty stubborn."

"Stubborn doesn't begin to cover it," Harper said. But there was indulgence layered under the exasperation. Tag knew exactly how Harper felt, and he didn't like having that particular common ground.

"She's necessary. The map isn't."

"Okay, what's going on?"

Harper looked at his yes man, grinning. "Shall I tell him, Mick?"

"You're in charge, Mr. Harper."

"Yes, I am in charge, aren't I? And you're just a tool, Donovan, and tools don't get to ask questions. Your job is to get Alexandra out in the field looking for that treasure, and so far I've had to do most of the work. She has no choice but to help you, so get your ass, and hers, out of Denver and do what I hired you to do."

"Call off Dussaud. I contracted to find the treasure and I'll find it."

Harper smiled his I-know-something-you-don't-know smile again.

"Dussaud and his goons don't have a clue what they're doing in this kind of territory," Tag said, "and now they don't have the map. He's only going to get in my way, and there are enough people wandering around out there already."

"That's your fault," Harper said. "You let the cat out of the bag."

"A guy with three SUVs and five men wouldn't have done that?"

"Dussaud has his purpose."

"What's that?"

"My concern. He's already been paid, and I understand he doesn't give up. Even if I called him off, and he went, what guarantee do I have that you'll turn the treasure over to me if you find it?"

"Besides the ten percent finder's fee? I don't double-cross my employers," Tag said. Of course, the U.S. government had first dibs on his loyalty.

"It's best for us both if you don't," Harper said. "My investors are getting impatient, and I'm… eager to keep them happy. And so should you be, Mr. Donovan. I dislike violence, and I would never stoop to murder."

"But at least one of your investors would," Tag interpreted.

"Let's just say I've heard stories more than one law enforcement agency—including the highest in the land— would be very interested to hear."

BENNET HARPER WAS NOT A MAN WHO LIKED TO wait for things, and when it came to getting rich, impatience was an understatement. If the world had worked the way it was supposed to, he'd have been born into money. But fate had a sick sense of humor, dropping him into the lap of a poor, if affectionate, single mother who'd never had two nickels to rub together. True, she'd spent every spare penny on her only son, but she'd never had a real appreciation for nuance.

Community college had been in her budget; Ivy League had been in Bennet's sights. He'd won that battle, but even if Jean Harper had owned anything worth mortgaging, her credit status would have failed them, so he'd been saddled with loans. He'd long since paid them off, but he'd never forgiven her. He hadn't, in fact, seen her in years. But then he wouldn't have anyway. A bargain basement childhood didn't fit into his hand-tailored life.