Sexy Silent Nights Read online

  He pushed down hard on both frustration and temper. That was something he’d started training himself to do ever since he’d first met Father Mike and begun what had become a new life. His first day at the center had been early December—sixteen years ago. White lights had twinkled on the trees in the prayer garden that bordered the basketball court. In the center of the tiny garden was a statue that he’d later learned was St. Francis. And it was where the social worker had taken him to meet Father Mike on that first day.

  He’d never met a priest before. What he’d expected was someone wearing black who’d lecture him and give him the worn-out lie that good deeds would be rewarded and evil ones punished. In the four years he’d spent in foster care he’d heard that one often enough. Father Mike had been wearing a T-shirt, shorts and sneakers, and instead of a lecture, he’d offered Jonah a game of one-on-one on the basketball court. Within the next fifteen minutes, they’d been joined and then challenged by two other kids—Gabe Wilder and Nash Fortune. The other guys had been good, but he and Father Mike had won.

  A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth as he recalled the competition as well as the brownies and milk that had followed. There’d been no lecture, not that day or any other day. The St. Francis Center for Boys had never been about lectures. Now he understood that it had been about giving young boys a place to channel their fear and anger and frustration and, most of all, to have fun and formulate dreams.

  His gaze sharpened and his mind returned to Cilla as she began to move back toward her office. Even through the glass wall and the distance that separated them, his senses were attuned to her. He watched her take a circuitous route, pausing on the way twice to speak to people. In addition to protecting him, she still had an office to run, and she looked very much at home checking with her colleagues.

  He continued to study her as she took a call on her cell. She wore her hair in a neat braid, but the bright blue blazer spoke of the passion he knew lay beneath the surface. A passion that had drawn him from the first.

  He’d had time to think about it during the night, to try to analyze what she was doing to him. It wasn’t just desire that she was able to trigger in him. The feeling he got when he looked at her was more complicated, similar to that flash of intuition he experienced when he was drawn to a new business venture. A feeling of rightness.

  That was what he’d felt when he’d first seen her, and again during the long night they’d spent together in Denver. He’d never gotten that feeling about a woman before. He’d never wanted to. It was too close to the way his mother had described her first meeting with his father.

  As a child, he’d loved to hear the story, especially during his dad’s long absences when he’d been away working on secret missions for the government. As his mother told it, they’d met at a fancy party. She’d been a waitress working for the caterers and he’d been a guest. They’d seen each other across a crowded room, and that had been it. Within days, they’d run away to be married. A real Cinderella story—except there hadn’t been a happy ever after. Thanks to his father.

  He wasn’t at all comfortable with the idea that he might have experienced the same feeling his mother had described the night he’d first seen Cilla.

  So the smartest thing to do would be to play by her rules and keep their relationship strictly professional.

  Then he saw a tall, lanky man stride past the reception area and make a beeline toward Cilla. His long dark hair curled over his ears and reached the collar of his shirt. In the faded jeans and worn leather jacket, he looked as if he’d be more at home on a ranch than in the sleek, modern office.

  A vague sense of recognition tugged at Jonah. He rarely forgot a face, and he’d seen the man before. Where? The smile that spread over Cilla’s face as she spotted him and the easy way the man returned it left a coppery taste in Jonah’s mouth and something twisted in his stomach. He’d taken a step toward the door before he stopped himself.

  Jealousy. He’d felt it before, but never about a woman. And no woman had ever triggered this kind of possessiveness before. The kind that made him want to forget all about rules or playing it smart.

  She entered the room with the cowboy only a step behind her. “David Santos, this is Jonah Stone.”

  The other man she’d been going to assign to him, Jonah recalled. Stepping forward, he gripped Santos’s outstretched hand. “I’ve seen you before. Where?”

  Santos smiled. “You may have caught a glimpse of me at one of your clubs, Interludes. Been there a couple of times, and I’ll be back. Great place.”

  “Come anytime.” Jonah found himself returning the smile. “Cilla tells me you have the unenviable job of tracking down all my possible enemies. Good luck with that.”

  “Slight change of plans,” Cilla said. “David’s going to distribute that task to our staff and from now on he’ll follow us around from a distance and provide backup as needed. Gabe thinks it’s a good idea.”

  “I agree.” As Jonah looked from Santos to Cilla, he didn’t miss the slight easing of tension in her shoulders.

  Santos nodded at him. “I’ll get started on the traces.”

  The moment he left the office, Jonah said, “You’re reassigning Santos to give us backup because you think someone followed us to the police station.”

  “How else would they know to deliver the green box there?” A trace of a frown appeared on her forehead. “But I didn’t see or sense the tail.”

  “Neither did I, and I watched.” It was his turn to frown. “You’re thinking that you didn’t sense the tail because I was distracting you.”

  “That crossed my mind. You made me forget where I was in the police station.”

  He smiled at her. “I’ve been good since then. And I haven’t seen any indication that you’re distracted enough to keep you from doing the job.”

  “The thing is—I didn’t feel like we were being followed.” She raised a hand to rub the back of her neck. “Usually, I get an itchy feeling. If you’re interfering with my instincts, you’d be better—”

  He stepped forward as he cut her off. “I was watching, too. What if neither of us sensed or spotted the tail because there wasn’t one?”

  She frowned. “Then how did your gift giver know to deliver the package to the police precinct?”

  “How else would you trace the movements of a car?”

  “Shit.” She fisted her hands on her hips and paced to one of the glass walls and back again. “Some kind of tracking device. And it wouldn’t have to be in the places where I checked for a bomb.” Whirling, she moved quickly to the door. “Come with me.”

  She stopped to let Santos know they’d be right back. Then Jonah had to lengthen his stride to keep up with her as she led the way out of the office to the elevator. In two minutes flat, they were at the level where she’d parked. Thirty seconds after that, they stood at the rear of her red sports car. It was now boxed in snugly by two large sedans that had managed to take more than their allotted space between the yellow lines.

  “I’ll take the driver’s side,” he said.

  She didn’t argue. Instead, she squatted down and ran her hand underneath the rear bumper. Nothing. Inching her way forward, she examined the right rear fender. Nothing again. It was the right front fender where her fingers struck pay dirt. “Got it.”

  She ran her fingers over the object. “It’s tiny, maybe three inches long, maybe two wide.”

  Circling around the back of the car, Jonah joined her and reached under the fender to check it out. “You want me to remove it?”

  “No way.” She gripped his wrist with her fingers and withdrew his hand with her own. “If we leave it, we may be able to find a use for it.”

  “Like leading him on a wild-goose chase. I like it.”

  Turning her head, she smiled at him and found that he was much closer than she’d thought. Their knees were brushing, and his mouth was only a few inches from hers. Awareness shimmered through her.

  The quick
curve of that mouth and the amusement in his eyes triggered something inside her. Not the heat that she’d felt before, but something warmer and sweeter that spread like a slow-moving river. Fascinated, she wondered how a simple shared smile could be more intimate than the kisses they’d shared. Or the long night they’d spent together in Denver.

  She could move back. Oh, she should move back. Because if she wasn’t mistaken his mouth had edged just a little bit closer. Her fingers still gripped his wrist, and she felt his pulse jump just as hers was doing.

  “I like the way your mind works, Cilla.”

  “Same goes.”

  Her pulse jumped again when he freed his wrist and took her hand, linked his fingers with hers. “I want to kiss you again.”

  “Same goes there, too. But we can’t.” Still, she didn’t move. She was no longer sure she could. She was experiencing that same disconnect between brain and body that she’d felt in the police station. His mouth was closer now, only a breath away. “Rules.”

  His lips brushed hers. “I’ve always thought they were meant for bending.”

  His mouth was on hers. Not hard and demanding as she’d expected, but soft, testing, tasting. There was no pressure, only invitation, and every cell in her body urged her to accept. When he changed the angle, and gently nipped at her bottom lip, she trembled.

  He’d never tempted her this way before. No one had. All the lectures she’d given herself during the night and the ride over from the police station were wiped away as her senses sharpened one by one.

  There was so much to feel. A chill in the air that contrasted sharply with the warmth of his skin, the heat of his mouth. She smelled the lingering fumes of exhaust, but also caught his scent, soap and something that was unique to him. She heard the rumble of traffic on the street below, the growl of a car’s engine on the level above them. And she could hear her own sigh escape as she moved closer and slipped her tongue between his teeth.

  His taste seeped into her then, his flavor just as hot and pungent as she remembered. How had she lived through all those long lonely nights without having it again? She kept her eyes open, though she badly wanted to close them, to yield completely to the moment and to him. But she had to see who he was, to understand what there was about this one man that could make her forget everything but him.

  It was so wrong to let him do this to her. So dangerous. But she couldn’t gather the will to stop. As he deepened the kiss, slowly, persuasively, everything became involved in that mouth-to-mouth contact. She felt not only her body yield but her mind and her heart, as well. The warmth that had spread through her shifted seamlessly into an ache that started to build and sharpen. She laid her free hand on his cheek and tightened the fingers still gripping his hand.

  The sound, explosive as a gunshot, had her pushing him down on the cement floor of the garage, covering as much of his body as she could with her own.

  “Stay,” she ordered in a whisper when he gripped her shoulders. Even as she dug beneath her jacket for her gun, she felt his moment of hesitation.

  “My call,” she snapped. “Look under the car to your right. Tell me what you see.”

  Even as he turned his head, she did the same and scanned the area to his left. There was no one approaching on foot in her limited sight line. But she caught the sound of the engine before Jonah said, “Car turning in from the level above.”

  There was little space to maneuver between the parked cars so she had to wiggle her way far enough up his body in order to grip the gun with both hands.

  The vehicle shot past in a blur. A black van with a big man behind the wheel. She would have moved then, but Jonah’s arm clamped hard around her waist. Tires squealed as the van took the turn to the lower level, and another loud crack echoed off the walls of the garage.

  “Let me go,” Cilla said. “It’s Tank and our backfiring van. I’d swear to it.”

  “You’re not going to catch him,” Jonah said, his breath tickling her cheek. “And last night he had a gun he wasn’t afraid to use.”

  Tires squealed again, and there was the sound of a muffled crash, then a noisy engine speeding up.

  “See?” He released her. “It sounds like he didn’t even have time to pay his parking ticket.”

  “Stay put for a minute.” Cilla got to her knees, but she didn’t reholster her gun until she’d risen to her feet and scanned the parking area. Nothing moved. The only sound came from traffic on the street below.

  She glanced back down at him. He looked very relaxed lying there on the cement floor. And there was a part of her that wanted very badly to join him. Another part of her wanted to imagine in great detail what they might have been doing if the backfiring van hadn’t interrupted them.

  Firmly, she latched onto the part of her that had a job to do. “This might have been worse.” She didn’t like to think about that. She hadn’t taken into consideration that someone could have been waiting in the garage for them. She certainly hadn’t been thinking about work when Jonah had kissed her. “There are very important reasons not to bend the rules. From now on, we’re going to follow them.”

  He grinned up at her. “Don’t I even get some points for following orders and letting you take the lead?”

  “That’s one of the rules.”

  He held up a hand. “How about helping me up.”

  She shot him her sweetest smile. “Not when you’re still thinking about helping me down.”

  “Can’t blame a guy for trying.” Jonah rolled and had one palm pressed to the ground and one knee under him when he suddenly lowered his head and peered more intently beneath her car. “What have we here?”

  “What is it?”

  When he met her eyes this time, the amusement had faded from his. “I’m no expert, but my guess is that there’s a bomb on your rear axle.”

  8

  HALF AN HOUR LATER, JONAH followed Cilla into a coffee shop two blocks down from her office building. Janine’s. Cilla had suggested the place to him when the officer heading up the bomb squad informed her it would be another half hour or so before he could clear the garage and her office building for reentry.

  Janine’s was small, not part of a chain, with red-checkered tablecloths and miniature poinsettia plants on each table. The music was instrumental and muted, featuring a saxophone crooning “Silent Night.” The air was rich with the scents of bacon, coffee and cinnamon.

  A pretty waitress in her late-twenties approached them. “Your usual table, Ms. Michaels?”

  “That would be great, Janine.”

  Not merely a waitress, Jonah mused, but young to be the owner.

  “There’s a lot of excitement down the block,” Janine said. “Fire engines, police cars.”

  “Bomb scare in the garage of my building,” Cilla told her. “Someone phoned it in. It’s all being taken care of, but they had to evacuate everyone temporarily. It’s just a precaution.”

  “Well, jeez,” Janine said, then added, “My grandmother says Christmas always brings out the crazies.”

  “How is your grandmother?” Cilla asked.

  “Great. She’s totally annoyed that she can’t come in here seven days a week. But she manages two or three. She doesn’t trust my mom and me to make the cinnamon buns right.”

  They followed her to a table at the back where they could both sit with a view of the door and the street.

  At Cilla’s instructions, David Santos had followed them and chosen a table closer to the door. Gibbons, who’d returned to the building just as the first police cruisers had arrived, was going to check the security discs just as soon as the building was cleared.

  Cilla had a point about sticking to the ground rules. Jonah was more than willing to concede that as he ordered coffee from Janine. It was the main reason he’d let her slip totally into the role of security agent since he’d spotted that bomb.

  If that car hadn’t backfired and jerked him back into reality, he’d have done more than bend the rules in the parking g
arage. They’d have made love right there only a few inches away from the bomb. While she’d been placing phone calls to her office and the police, he’d used the time to leash in the fury and the fear that had gripped him tight in the belly when he’d seen the wires hanging from the underside of her car.

  She’d been a cop, he’d reminded himself. And the Priscilla part of her believed in following procedures. So she’d have checked the car before she’d driven anywhere in it. She’d have found the bomb. That conviction was strengthened by the methodical way she’d contacted Finelli and Gabe before they’d even left the garage.

  “You’re angry,” she said.

  “Damn straight. That bastard planted a bomb under your car. But I know temper is never the answer.”

  She met his eyes. “I agree. What we need to do is focus all of our attention on discovering who is behind the notes.”

  The chilly, almost lecturing tone of her voice had him wanting to smile. “In other words, I’m the client and you’re the pro.”

  “Yes.”

  Tilting his head, he studied her. She’d been pulling back from him ever since he’d spotted the bomb. He was beginning to suspect there wasn’t going to be any backing away for either of them. But he could be patient when he wanted to be.

  “Fine. We still can’t be sure if this Tank person is working alone or if he’s been hired by someone else. Sometimes the best way to figure out the who is to discover the why.”

  She pulled a legal pad and a pencil out of the bag Santos had brought her when he’d joined them in the garage. “I think better when I’m writing—or at least scribbling.”

  “You mind sharing? I’m a bit of a doodler myself.”

  She ripped off some sheets and fished out another pencil. Then she grabbed her cell, flicked the screen a few times with her finger. “According to the text you sent me with your schedule, we’re not due at Interludes for another hour. And you have a meeting with your partners, Carl Rockwell and Stanley Rubin, at the St. Francis Hotel at four-thirty.”