A Younger Woman Page 13

  She stopped at the door and eyed him for a moment. “If that’s true, it’s a sad waste a man as handsome as you never got married. These days a young woman would appreciate a man who isn’t afraid to bend over and pick up his shorts.”

  Ry nodded, cut her a hasty smile, then swung open the door and handed Rose her purse. “I’ll find Margo for you and tell her to give you a call. Will you be all right going home?”

  “Of course. I carry pepper spray,” Rose declared. “Margo insists. And I always take a taxi. He’s waiting out on the street. Are you sure I can’t offer you a hand with the broom?”

  “No. I’ll take care of it. Good night, Mrs. duFray.”

  “I don’t imagine I’ll get any sleep until my girl calls, so tell Margo not to worry about the time. I just need to hear her voice.”

  “I’ll tell her,” Ry promised.

  “Thank you, Ryland. You’re such a good boy.”

  “I didn’t mean to break the lamp,” Margo said the minute Ry removed the gag from her mouth. “I was trying to slide this damn thing up the bedpost and I lost my balance. It’s your fault. If you hadn’t—”

  “You didn’t get cut, did you?”

  Margo saw he was eyeing the broken glass around her bare feet. “If I have, that’s your fault, too.”

  He swore, then pulled the cuff keys from his pocket and released her. Before Margo could move, he lifted her off her feet and laid her on the bed. “Let me see.”

  “No!” Margo tried to roll away from him, but he stopped her by placing a hand in the middle of her stomach and pinning her flat to the mattress. “I’m taking a look at your feet one way or another. Which way do you prefer?”

  Margo went limp and stared at the ceiling. “Hurry up and do it,” she snapped.

  When he didn’t move, she glanced at him and caught him smiling. “You’re a dirty old man, Ry. I’m talking about my feet.”

  Still smiling, he examined the soles of her feet, one at a time. When he was finally satisfied she hadn’t been cut, he left her and retrieved a broom and began to clean up the broken shards of glass.

  Slowly Margo pulled herself up and rested her back against the headboard. Still fuming, angry that he’d had the gall to chain her like an animal, she said, “So efficient. Do you make beds, too?”

  He dumped the swept-up glass in the trash. “I live alone, remember? If I want my bed made more than once a week, I have to make it.”

  Margo sniffed and rubbed her wrists. “So who was at the door? Anyone I know?”

  “Yeah, you know her.” He stuck the broom out into the hall and then returned to sit in the paisley chair.

  Was it the woman who had called him yesterday? Is that who had come knocking? Margo refused to feel jealous. “Are you going to tell me who it was, or are we back to playing games?”

  “Last night’s game had a happy ending.”

  Margo glared at him. “Never again.”

  “Never say never, baby.”

  “If you’re not going to tell me who was at the door, there’s no sense being in the same room with you.” She swung her leg over the side of the bed in an attempt to leave, but he reached out and laid a hand on her knee. Quietly he said, “Your mother.”

  “My mother. My mother!” Margo knocked his hand off her knee and leaped to her feet. “What was my mother doing here? Does she know I’m here?” She turned away, thinking. “No, of course she doesn’t know I’m here. If she did I would be facing her at this very minute.” She spun back, demanded, “What did she want? Tell me everything you said to her.”

  “She came to ask a favor.”

  “A favor? Of you? When hell freezes.”

  “It’s true. She wanted me to see if I could find you. It seems she called your friend’s apartment looking for you, and your lie fell apart. She’s worried. I considered leading her upstairs to ease her mind, but—”

  Margo ignored his teasing and began worrying her lip. She should never have made up that story. It hadn’t been a fail-safe lie like Blu had taught her.

  “You never told me your mother liked me.”

  Margo watched him stand and strip off his shirt and toss it in the direction of the hamper near the closet door. “My mother doesn’t like you.”

  “Sure she does. She told me so.”

  “As usual, your ego could use scissors.” Margo sank into the stuffed chair Ry had just vacated, then bolted back up, too anxious to stay put. “So what did you tell her?”

  He disappeared into the closet and returned wearing a white T-shirt stretched over his broad shoulders. He found a spot by the door and leaned against the wall, one hand resting on his hip. “I told her as soon as I found you, I would have you call her. We’ll wait an hour and then you can phone her. Tony told her you were sick. Now she doesn’t know what to believe.”

  “So I’m expected to tell another lie or get sick?”

  “She went by your apartment. We’re just lucky she didn’t go inside. When you didn’t answer the door she left.”

  This situation just kept souring in all directions. Margo couldn’t wait to hear more good news.

  “She tried to find Blu,” he offered.

  “With no luck,” Margo finished. “I suppose Brodie was next on her list.”

  “You guessed it. It looks like you’ll have to tell another tall tale, or be prepared to confess everything. Which I don’t think would be a bad idea. Your mother’s no dummy. And she’s tougher than you think.”

  “I can’t tell her Blu’s disappeared. Brodie, too. There’s nothing positive I can say right now to give her any hope. I hate lying,” Margo sighed. “It always makes things worse.”

  “I hate lying, too.”

  His words were softly spoken, half strength, but they riled her just the same. “But you do it so well, Detective Archard. You certainly had me going a few hours ago. It brings back memories of another time and place, don’t you think?” The sarcasm hid her hurt. Thankfully. Margo watched him narrow his eyes and shove away from the wall.

  “You’re no slouch yourself, baby. How many lies have you told in the past three days?”

  His question gave her pause. Yes, she’d told a dozen-plus lies. Were those lies any more justified than Ry’s? She didn’t know, but she didn’t intend to apologize for any of them.

  “Let’s not fight, baby. It won’t help.”

  His rich voice was soothing. Angry about that, angry that she still couldn’t hate everything about him, Margo snapped, “And what will help, Ry? You told me to lie to Mama. It’s your fault I’m faced with telling her another one now.”

  “No. You said you couldn’t tell her the truth. I simply insisted you return the phone message she left on your answering machine.”

  “What was I supposed to say? Sorry I missed your call, Mama. Oh, by the way, I was shot last night, my apartment has been trashed, Blu and Brodie are missing, and Ryland Archard has me under house arrest in his bedroom.”

  “When you put it that way, I vote for another lie.”

  Margo flopped down in the chair and buried her head in her hands.

  “I know this is hard, baby, but until we find out who’s after Blu, we’re going to have to work together on this.”

  His voice was close. Margo looked up to find him kneeling beside her. Right now she needed a pair of strong arms to curl into, but she didn’t dare allow herself the weakness. She needed to stay angry. She needed to remember what Ry was capable of. She jumped up and put some distance between them. “We may have to work together, but that’s all we’re doing together, Ry. Understand?”

  Suddenly Margo’s stomach growled.

  “You’re hungry. You probably haven’t eaten all day.”

  No, she hadn’t, but who could think of food at a time like this? “I don’t want anything to eat.”

  He shoved to his feet. “You’ve got to eat. Lets go downstairs, and I’ll see what I can find. Afterward you can call your mother.”

  Margo watched him stretch, yawn
, then yawn again, and that’s when the most fabulous idea slipped quietly into her subconscious. She said, “You go ahead. I’ll be right down.”

  “If you’re not, I’ll be back up to get you,” he warned.

  “You won’t have to. I’ll be down,” Margo promised. “And I’ll cook. It might help me relax.”

  Margo watched Ry lean against the door and yawn for the tenth time since they left the kitchen table. They were back upstairs, in the bedroom again, his mood as sour as she’d ever seen it. Her mood, however, was the best she’d experienced in days—freedom was just minutes away.

  “Hurry up, get your clothes off,” he ordered as he shed his T-shirt and tossed it in the chair. Another yawn. He turned to see that she hadn’t moved to do as he’d asked. “I said, get undressed. What are you waiting for?”

  For you to fall over, Margo wanted to say. Instead she said, “I won’t sleep in the same bed with you.”

  “You did last night. You even liked it.”

  “That was before I was reminded how much I hate you.”

  He blinked his eyes trying hard to stay awake. “I’m not going to force myself on you. I don’t think I could tonight if I wanted to. What I need right now is sleep.”

  “Go sleep in the hammock.”

  “Last time I did that I got a sore neck.” He unsnapped his jeans in a lethargic motion, then fumbled to find his zipper.

  All she had to do was stall a little while longer, five minutes, max.

  He sat on the edge of the bed and pulled off his boots. When he stood, he wobbled slightly.

  Margo’s confidence soared, then it was suddenly doused when he pulled his handcuffs from his back pocket. “What are you going to do with those?”

  He turned to look at her. “What do you think?”

  Margo shook her head. “You can’t, Ry! You wouldn’t!”

  He stepped out of his jeans and briefs at the same time and stood beautifully naked holding the handcuffs loosely in his hand. His eyes were half-closed, his chest impossibly hard, and his long legs looked like sturdy oak trees—solid and unwavering. He was semiaroused, and he appeared more alert than he’d been for the past half hour. Clearheaded and perfectly rational.

  That was impossible.

  “Get your clothes off, baby, or I’ll do it for you.”

  Margo swore silently and reached for the top button on her shirt. Making more work out of it than necessary, she slowly undid one button at a time.

  “Need some help?” he warned.

  “I don’t have a bra on,” Margo protested.

  “And that means what?”

  She called him a dirty name, then finished unbuttoning her shirt. She eased it off her injured shoulder first before shrugging out of it the rest of the way. She watched his gaze settle on her bare breasts.

  He must have the constitution of an ox, Margo thought.

  She let her shirt fall to the floor, then slowly slipped out of her jeans, keeping her panties on. As she straightened, he reached for her good arm, clamped one of the cuffs around her wrist, then snapped the other cuff around his own.

  This wasn’t part of the plan, Margo wanted to scream, but instead she was forced to deal with the heat from Ry’s naked body. She tried to control her response, tried to gain as much distance as the cuffs would allow. Using anger to keep her grounded, she rattled the cuff clamped around her wrist. “I can’t sleep like this, Ry. Take it off. Please!”

  He stared at her for a long minute, then shook his head. “This is insurance, baby. When I open my eyes in the morning the first thing I want to see is you lying next to me.” He tugged her toward the bed, tossed back the covers, then dragged her along with him as he literally fell into bed.

  Sleep snared him a minute later.

  Brodie Hewitt had a steel jaw. Any normal man would have passed out hours ago, Taber determined, watching the man take another bone-crushing blow.

  They had been chipping away at duFray’s foreman since Taber had taken him off the Nightwing at gunpoint. He hadn’t expected Hewitt’s muscle to be backed by brains, or that the bastard would be so damn quick. He’d been confident that his own man could easily handle a poorly educated fisherman. But he’d been wrong. From the very moment Antos had faced off with Hewitt, Taber had known they were in trouble.

  Realizing his error, Taber had removed himself from the path of danger and pulled his .25-caliber Beretta from his jacket pocket. Unfortunately, his aim had been off a good couple of inches when he’d pulled the trigger, and the bullet nearly took Antos’s head clean off.

  The incident was not only unfortunate, but messy. At gunpoint, he’d ordered Hewitt to toss Antos’s body overboard, then he’d forced the burly fisherman off the boat and into the trunk of his car.

  “What is it now?” Taber shoved away from the wall he’d been leaning against and motioned to his two idiot cousins as they entered the warehouse. He couldn’t stand the one called Raynard, but Rudy, not much better, had at least an ounce of brains and didn’t sweat all the time. “Have you found her? Did she turn up at the Toucan?”

  “No, we haven’t found her yet,” Rudy answered back.

  “Maybe she’s run off,” Raynard suggested.

  The obvious got Raynard a slap alongside the head from his brother. “We got a few more places to check out, boss. She’ll turn up. We’ll just keep looking till we find her.”

  “She’s probably scared.”

  Stating another obvious fact got Raynard another slap. “Of course she’s scared,” Rudy said. “You shot her.”

  “I didn’t mean to. Maybe she drowned. I’ve been thinkin’—”

  “Don’t,” Taber snapped, “just do as you’re told.” He turned away from the idiots, refusing to believe that Margo duFray’s life had ended in the river. He also refused to believe these two men were truly related to him.

  He focused on the former, something he actually could do something about. He’d been thinking about “Beautiful” for two days now, even when his thoughts should have been solely on the recovery of his stolen merchandise. He’d gone so far as to envision her in his penthouse, all that black hair spread across his white carpet. She’d be naked of course, her arms outstretched, begging him to join her.

  His men had tied Brodie Hewitt to a wooden support in his warehouse, a support twice the man’s size to ensure there would be no more surprises. “Did you hear that, Hewitt? They think she’s dead. Is she?” Taber pulled the blue chemise from his pocket and waved it in front of the man’s battered face. “She’s not at her apartment, we checked.”

  On seeing the silk chemise in Taber’s hand, Brodie Hewitt went crazy. He snarled like a dog and fought the ropes like a wild bull. But in the end, defeated, he sagged against the wooden support.

  “I admire loyalty,” Taber said smoothly. “Yours, however, boarders on stupidity. I could kill you right now.” He eyed the blood trailing past Brodie’s cheek, then smiled. “But I don’t think you’ve suffered enough to have it end so quickly. Not near enough. Make him bleed, boys. And this time, I want to hear him scream.”

  As his men went back at Brodie Hewitt, Taber glanced over his shoulder to find that his two cousins were still there, hands in their pockets, looking ridiculous. “What are you standing around for? Do I have to draw you two a damn picture? I want things the way they were three days ago. I want my merchandise, and I want the woman. Do you understand?”

  “You didn’t have the woman three days ago,” Raynard pointed out.

  Rudy hit his brother again, then grabbed him by the collar and pulled him toward the warehouse door before Taber decided to kill another one of his men. The one no one would miss.

  Chapter 10

  Ry woke to the sound of music. Only, the music coaxing him awake wasn’t the kind of music he normally listened to. It sounded more like something Jackson would like, fast paced and too loud.

  He blinked open his eyes and found he was in his own bed. That much was reassuring, but the splitting headac
he driving nails through his skull was not. He tried to move his arm, tried to sit up. The sound of metal rattling sent another sharp pain shooting through his head. Again he wrestled with himself to sit up, which was impossible.

  “What the hell…” He angled his head, saw his wrist chained to the bed.

  “Need some help, partner?”

  Ry jerked his head toward the window and found Jackson leaning against the wall watching what was left of the day go by. “How long have I been out?” he managed, still muzzy headed.

  “All day. Must have been one helluva mickey.”

  “Shut up, Jackson, and cut me loose!”

  Jackson turned from the window. “Take it easy. I haven’t been sleepin’ the day away like you. I’ve got a tail on her, so rest easy.”

  “She’s gone?”

  “Took flight sometime in the middle of the night is my best guess.”

  “But you know where she is, right?”

  “I do.” Jackson strolled forward, motioning to Ry’s wrist and the set of cuffs that shackled him to the bedpost. “Damn inventive, Margo duFray. Gutsy, too. I do like a woman who knows how to take charge.”

  Ry jerked on the cuffs. “Get my key, dammit.”

  “I hope you can at least remember the good parts.” Jackson bent and picked up Ry’s jeans from the floor beside the bed. After going through the pockets and coming up empty, he reached into his own pocket and produced his set of keys.

  “She must have drugged me,” Ry reasoned. “I feel like hell.”

  “You look like it, too.”

  “Cut me loose,” Ry demanded.

  Jackson unlocked Ry’s cuffs and freed his partner from the bedpost. “I looked around. Found an empty bottle of sleeping pills in the medicine cabinet along with a mess of other stuff. What the hell’s going on with you, partner? If I didn’t know better I’d say you had a healthy sideline going.”

  Ry caught the look Jackson was giving him. The look said I’m waiting for an explanation. “I used to have trouble sleeping. I haven’t used any of that stuff in over a year.”