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  “Whoa,” Chance said, blocking her way. “My job is to keep you inside. We don’t want anyone else getting a shot at you.”

  “We?” Her eyes narrowed suddenly. “When did you suddenly join forces with Tracker and the D.C. police?”

  “When he told me that he’d skin me alive if I let you out of the gallery.” Chance flashed her a grin then, quick and charming. “I’m rather attached to my skin. And there’s no reason for you to put yourself at risk by going out there, not when you have at least three competent people looking out for your interests.”

  “Yeah.” Sophie frowned. “And isn’t that a lucky coincidence.” Three competent people were looking out for her interests. Suddenly, a dozen thoughts began to spin around in her head. Gradually they settled into slots exactly like the little numbered Lotto balls did on the night of a big draw.

  Landry getting killed in her shop, a sniper taking aim at her through her apartment window—both times, Tracker had been close at hand, and the D.C. police hadn’t been far behind.

  Luck, the kind you made for yourself and the kind that just happened, was something she didn’t have any trouble believing in. Nor was coincidence something foreign to her belief system. But there seemed to be quite a bit of both in her life recently.

  Her frown deepened as she watched Tracker start conversing with Detective Ramsey again.

  “Police barricades are very bad for business.”

  Sophie turned at the sound of Meryl Beacham’s drawling voice. The woman glided forward with the grace of a cat to join them at the window. “Carter, why don’t you earn some of the money I pay you by going out there and urging them to remove them? We’re not going to get anyone in the shop as long as the street’s blockaded.”

  “Right away, boss. I’ll bribe them with coffee,” Chance said, grabbing a mug as he headed for the door.

  “What in the world is going on, Sophie?” Meryl asked the moment they were alone. “One of the uniforms told me that someone shot at you.”

  Sophie studied the other woman for a moment. Although they’d operated adjacent stores for the last three years, she and Meryl had never become close. But right now, she thought she saw genuine concern in the other woman’s eyes.

  “Someone took a few shots at me,” Sophie said. “I have no idea why.”

  “You look like you could use a drink.” Moving to a cabinet, she opened a door and took out a tray with a bottle and glasses. “I just happen to have some very fine cognac. Will you join me?”

  Moving forward, Sophie took the glass Meryl offered and welcomed the liquid fire that slid down her throat.

  “You don’t have to tell me what’s going on. It’s not like we’re bosom buddies or anything. And I know you live for your work, but if I were you I’d take a little vacation until the police straighten this whole mess out. In my experience, bad things usually happen in threes, and there have already been two murders associated with your shop.”

  Sophie stared at her. “Two murders? What are you talking about?”

  Meryl waved a hand. “John Landry, and there was that woman a month and a half ago who was killed by a hit-and-run driver down on the corner. You were in England at the time, I think. According to the police, she was killed within minutes of buying something in your shop. And whoever shoved her in front of the car took the package. Surely they questioned you about it.”

  Sophie set her glass down. “Yes. Yes, they did. I just never made a connection….”

  Meryl took her hands. “Why don’t you go to your brother’s place in Virginia until this all blows over?”

  “I’ll think about it. Could you do me a favor?”

  “Of course.”

  “If the police come in here looking for me, tell them I’m in my shop.”

  11

  SOPHIE FOUND THE FILE she wanted in less than five minutes. Setting it on the table in her back room, she began to work her way through the order forms, delivery receipts, and bills of sale.

  The bill, when she found it, was dated May 15. Jayne Childress had purchased a ceramic vase. With very little trouble, Sophie could picture it in her mind. It had come from the shop she’d discovered on her last buying trip to England. Noah had told her that everything in that first shipment had practically flown out of the shop, and she’d visited the place again to negotiate an exclusive deal with Matt Draper, the owner. The ceramic horse had come from there, and so had the blue-green bowl she’d just sold to Millie Langford-Hughes.

  Placing her hands flat on the worktable, Sophie stared down at the bill of sale. It was on her second trip to the shop that she’d first run into John Landry.

  Now Chris Chandler was asking her to tag all the pottery from this shop, sight unseen, and he’d asked particularly for equestrian pieces. What in the world was going on?

  Closing the folder, she placed it back in the drawer and forced herself to think clearly. Too many coincidences usually equaled a pattern.

  Wasn’t that the very same thing that was bothering her about Tracker? The man’s job was to protect her—from the wrong men, from kidnappers, from…whatever it was that was going on in her shop? There was a pattern there too.

  Clarity came in a flash of pain that had her swaying against the table and gripping the edges for support. Lucas was going out of town and somehow they’d gotten wind of whatever it was that was going on in her shop. So after a year of avoiding her, Tracker had all of a sudden become her…lover. What better way to get close enough to protect her?

  Drawing in a deep breath, she pushed herself away from the table. Why hadn’t she even suspected that he might be with her because it was part of his job?

  This time the wave of pain was enough to stop her breath. For a moment she leaned against the table and concentrated on drawing in air and letting it out. She couldn’t afford to think about him now. She had to focus on One of a Kind. Building her business was the one thing she’d done in her life that was successful. If people were dying because they’d had something to do with her shop…

  Taking another deep breath, she made herself think about them—John Landry, Jayne Childress. And Sophie Wainwright?

  She had to find out what was going on.

  TRACKER WANTED TO PACE, but he made himself stand perfectly still while Ramsey conferred with the men who’d just loaded the shooter into the ambulance. He was losing it. For the first time in his life, he was letting the personal interfere with his work, and if he couldn’t get his fear under control, he was going to be useless.

  Every time he let his mind wander, for even an instant, he heard the sound of shattering glass again. Then the terror would start to build, just as it had when he’d raced up those three endless flights of stairs to Sophie’s apartment.

  Swearing under his breath, he turned and tried to focus on the items that Sophie had on display in her window—on anything that would stop the sound of the glass. A delicately featured china doll sat on a small, carved chair. A princess, he thought.

  How was he supposed to think coolly, rationally, if everywhere he looked there was something that reminded him of Sophie? Scowling, he was about to turn away when his gaze was caught by the ceramic dragons, nearly hidden in the folds of blue silk that covered the floor. He counted three of them stationed beneath the princess’s chair.

  The whole scene was so Sophie, so one of a kind—fanciful and surprising. And the eye of the beholder was inevitably drawn to the princess sitting on her throne. Alone. He’d never thought of her as a loner, but he was coming to know that she thought of herself that way.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Chance approaching, and he whirled to face him. “Where is she?”

  “Relax,” Chance said. “She’s talking to Meryl. Ah, Detective,” he continued as Ramsey joined them, “I come at my boss’s request bearing gifts. She wants to know when the barricades are coming down. Murder and mayhem wreak havoc with business.”

  Ramsey took the coffee Chance offered him and then signaled to two of the u
niforms. “Traffic will be back to normal in a few minutes. Never let it be said that the D.C. police stood in the way of commerce.”

  “You get anything yet from the shooter?” Chance asked.

  “Gibbs is sweet-talking him now.”

  “I’d like a turn,” Tracker said.

  Ramsey shook his head. “Not a chance. You don’t want to talk. You want to finish the job that your bullet didn’t. If anyone can get anything, Gibbs will. One of the medics told him that she saved his life.” Ramsey studied Tracker for a minute. “She probably did, too. That was pretty accurate shooting, considering that you were using a handgun.”

  Making no comment, Tracker glanced past Chance toward the gallery. He could just make out the two women through the glass. Sophie was safe, and he only had one choice if he was going to keep the dragons threatening her at bay. “I haven’t told her about the smuggling yet. I’ve been waiting for the right time.” He shifted his gaze to Chance. “But I have to tell her now—everything. It’s her shop, her life. And she’s smart. The minute she’s over the shock of nearly being killed, she’s going to start putting two and two together, and then she’s going to give me my walking papers.” He turned to Ramsey. “That’s when Detective Gibbs will have to take over. I have a place in the country she can take Sophie to, and Noah and I will handle the delivery tomorrow. As far as Sophie’s customers are concerned, she’s out sick.”

  “Sounds like a plan to me,” Ramsey said.

  PUNCHING IN THE NEW CODE she’d gotten out of the security man, Sophie opened the door of her apartment and stepped in. She’d thought she’d had time to steel herself, but her stomach clenched all the same. The room was dim because of the boards that were now nailed across the window, and someone had removed the shattered glass. Forcing her gaze to the shelf over her couch, she saw that the horse was still sitting there, right where she’d pointed it out to Noah a moment before that first shot.

  Pushing the memory away, she crossed to the shelf and studied the horse. The workmanship was excellent, exquisite in fact. Somehow the artist has managed to capture the spirit of a horse, even the personality. Just looking at it, she could almost imagine the freedom of riding with all that power beneath her.

  Lifting it down, she turned it over in her hands and studied it, frowning. If she’d put it in her shop yesterday instead of keeping it for herself, she would have charged about two hundred and fifty for it—hardly enough to motivate a murder, or two.

  The sound of footsteps on the stairs had her jumping. Replacing the horse on the shelf, she raced to the door and was about to shut it when Tracker slammed his palm against it and shoved past her into the room. “I told you to stay in the gallery. How am I supposed to protect you when I can never predict what you’re going to do?”

  He might just as well have punched her, but this time anger warred with pain. Stiffening her spine, she said, “That’s what you’re really here for, isn’t it? To protect me. And you went along with…everything just so that you could do your job.”

  “Sophie, I—”

  “I’m right, aren’t I? Our whole affair was just something that you agreed to because then you could do what Lucas pays you to do—look after his sister, who can’t be trusted to do anything right.” He didn’t have to answer her. She could see all of her suspicions confirmed on his face, in his eyes. Pain tightened her heart until she wasn’t sure she could breathe. Worse than that, she could feel the burn of tears behind her eyes.

  “Damn it.” He moved to her then and gripped her shoulders. “I stayed away from you for a year. But you were in trouble, bigger trouble than you know. What was I supposed to do? Walk away?”

  Placing both hands on his chest, she pushed hard. She might have been trying to shove a wall of granite. The next thing she knew, he’d lifted her right off her feet so that she was dangling in midair. Eye-to-eye, she glared at him. “Walking away seems to be your specialty. You didn’t have any trouble doing it in California last year. And you won’t have any trouble doing it once we settle this little problem with my shop.”

  “Little problem?” He gave her a shake. “Someone just tried to shoot you, and you want to call that a little problem? I promised your brother that I would keep you safe.”

  “And you decided to do that by climbing into my bed!”

  He shook her again. “That wasn’t supposed to happen.”

  “I hate to interrupt—” Natalie Gibbs began as she stepped into the room.

  They turned in unison to glare at her.

  Natalie raised both hands, palms out, as she backed out of the room. “Sorry. I was never here.”

  Tracker set Sophie on her feet hard, and she was appalled to find that her legs were trembling. She wasn’t going to cry, she told herself as she felt one tear escape and run down her cheek.

  “Sophie, don’t. It wasn’t… I wasn’t… You were in danger. Damn it, don’t cry!”

  Locking her knees, she poked a finger into his chest. “I’ll do whatever I want. Two people associated with my shop are dead. Someone shot at me, and what I want to know is why you didn’t fill me in on it right from the beginning? I’m not stupid, you know.”

  “No.” Tracker drew in a breath. “And you’re right. Maybe we should have told you. But you have a temper, and you have a tendency to take risks. Lucas and I weren’t sure how you’d react. After the stunt you pulled in California last year, giving me the slip and getting yourself kidnapped, we…I decided that it might be safer not to tell you.”

  “You and Lucas can’t run my life.” He had a point about the California episode. That simple fact had her temper spiking even higher. Before she could rein it in, she aimed one good punch at his jaw.

  He caught her fist right before it landed, and grabbed her other hand, too. “I’m not as easy to knock down as your brother. And I won’t fight fair.”

  She lifted her chin. “Tell me about it.” For a moment, she saw something in his eyes—pain, perhaps—but her anger hadn’t played itself out. “Okay, so I have a temper and I take risks. Did it ever occur to you that my character flaws might be causally connected to the way you and my brother treat me? A year ago you could have warned me that you were going to investigate Bradley instead of just letting me know after the fact. And you should have told me this time. This is my shop. Do you have any idea what One of a Kind means to me?”

  “Yes.”

  Sophie blinked. The one word stopped her tirade. “You do?”

  Releasing her hands, he took one careful step back. “Do you think I could watch you the past two days and not know how much this place means to you? I’m not stupid either, you know.”

  “You sure could have fooled me.”

  He took another step away, and Sophie felt a second tear slide down her cheek.

  He raised a hand toward her face but let it hover in the air for a moment before it dropped. “Don’t. Please don’t. I’m going to keep you safe. In a few minutes, the man you know as Carter Mitchell is going to fill you in on everything we know. Then Detective Gibbs is going to stay with you twenty-four–seven until this is over. I’ll stay away, but I’ve got to have your word that you’ll cooperate.”

  Her heart wasn’t breaking. How could it break when he’d just cut it out?

  Tracker moved to the counter and then turned to face her. He was still talking to her. She knew that because his lips were moving, but all she was aware of was that he’d withdrawn again. And he hadn’t denied one thing that she’d accused him of. He’d become her lover to do his job. And when this was over, he would disappear into those shadows he preferred to hide in.

  “—a place in the country. You’ll like it, and by tomorrow—”

  What did she want with an arrogant, infuriating man who didn’t want her?

  “—better pack something.”

  Why had she let herself hope that something would be different—that this man would be different? Why in the world had she fallen in love with Tracker McBride?

 
Fallen in love? The thought had her knees trembling again. Suddenly, she was terrified that she wouldn’t be able to make it to her bedroom, and she needed a moment by herself, to think. She took one cautious step.

  “Sophie…”

  She could see concern in his eyes. Well, she was concerned, too. She’d let herself fall in love with a man who didn’t want her. “I’m going to take a shower.”

  Wasn’t there an old song about washing a man right out of your hair? Moving in what felt like very slow motion, she made it to the door of her bedroom and shut it behind her. She’d fallen in love with Tracker. Shouldn’t she have seen it coming? It had started when he’d rescued her from that balloon. No, perhaps it had started that first day in Lucas’s office, when he’d held her in his arms.

  Stripping off her clothes, she turned on the shower and let the icy spray send a jolt through her system. Okay, she loved him. If she kept saying it to herself, maybe her stomach would stop flipping over and she could accept it. And figure out what to do about it.

  Turning the water to hot, she dumped shampoo into her hand and tried to think. Did he expect her to go quietly off to the country with Detective Gibbs while he went about the business of saving her and then disappeared from her life again?

  In his dreams.

  She’d been there, done that, and it had gotten her a year-long affair with a dream lover. Now that she’d had a real one, she wasn’t giving him up. No way. Turning her face into the water, she let it sluice over her.

  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.