Jacquie ’Alessandro - Jinxed!

“Hello, Chloe,” Steve said from behind the gun.

IAN GOT TO THE OFFICE and took one look at Danny’s tight face. “What?”

“They lost Steve and Al.”

Ian went still. “What? The text message said-”

“Yeah.” Danny was tall, six-five, and as the point guard on Ian’s winter basketball league, that height came in handy. It did not come in handy for pacing the small, tight office, and he banged his head on the hanging light. “Damn it!” He rubbed the spot. “They’ve still got Al in their sites somewhere in Mexico City. But they lost visual of Steve at some point after midnight. Never picked it back up again.”

“And we’re just finding out? Christ, that was-” Ian looked at his cell phone for the time “-eight hours ago. He could be anywhere, he could be going after anyone he thinks will lead us to him. He could be-” He went still, galvanized by a sudden fear. “Here.”

“What?”

“He could be here by now. Shit.” He ran toward the door.

“Where are you going?” Danny asked.

“Chloe’s.”

STEVE LOOKED THE SAME AS always, like he’d raided a techno geek’s closet. He wore a short-sleeved plaid shirt, baggy pants that failed to hide that he looked as if he’d made a few too many visits to Krispy Kreme and white athletic shoes with black dress socks. Still, for being fashion challenged and carrying an extra forty pounds, the guy was quick. He reached into the shower for Chloe, who cringed back, wincing, expecting to be raped, maimed, murdered-

The water shut off.

She cracked an eye. Steve was holding out a towel, which she snatched and wrapped around herself. “What are you doing here?”

“Came for tea and crumpets.” He grabbed her wrist in a tight, unbreakable grip.

She resisted but he simply tugged her out of the shower. “How did you get in?”

“Turns out fencing antiques isn’t my only talent. I can pick a mean lock.”

“W-where are we going?”

“To talk.” He didn’t let go of her until they were in the living room. There, he shoved her to the couch.

Standing over her, hands on his hips, scowl on his face, he looked big and tough and mean, and nothing at all like the quiet, hardworking man who’d brought her his books to reconcile once a month.

“What have you told them?” he demanded.

The towel he’d given her just barely wrapped around her wet body, and she was holding it tightly, hoping everything was covered. “Told who?”

Steve pinched the bridge of his nose, sighed, then, looming over her, he held the barrel of the gun so that it was an inch from her temple. “One more time. What have you told them?”

Oh, God, oh, God. “Um, the police?”

In answer, he pressed the gun to her head.

“Nothing!” she cried, trying to sink back against the couch as far as she could go. “I didn’t-”

“I know you sneaked into our office. I know you found the second set of files.”

“I wasn’t sneaking, I heard a noise, and I went to investigate-

“Liar.” He grabbed her by the nape of her neck and hauled her upright. The gun flickered in front of her eyes, then settled against the side of her head.

“Please,” she whispered. “Please don’t.”

“Here’s the thing. Al’s going down, okay? They have his prints on the bodies.”

Oh, God. There were bodies?

“They can link him to things that they can’t link me to. Only they know he didn’t work alone.” He smiled into her panicked face. “I’m thinking you got greedy, see? You were working the books, both sets of them, and you saw our profits. You decided to come onboard. You demanded it, in fact, or you’d turn us in. The two of you cut me out first, of course, which makes me the victim-”

“No-”

“Oh, yes.” At that, he hauled her across the living room, to her desk, which her laptop sat on. He flipped up the top, opened a Word document, and then shoved her into the chair. “Start typing. To Whom It May Concern.”

She stared up at him in horror.

He waved his gun. “Hel-lo-o-o-o?”

She jumped and put her fingers on the keyboard. To Whom It May Concern…

“The guilt is too much. I’ve betrayed Steve-” He broke off when she didn’t type, and pressed the cold metal of the gun to her temple. “The guilt is too much,” he repeated with a patience that belied the tight grip he had on her.

Heart in her throat, her vision hampered by her own tears, she began to type, but then Steve went still. “Did you hear that?” he whispered.

She hadn’t heard a thing over the booming of her heart in her ears, but there…she heard the front door handle rattle.

Ian.

Before she could process the thought, Steve yanked her out of the chair and back against him, the gun once again settling against her temple. “Don’t make a sound,” he hissed, and pulled her around the desk and back against the wall, where they’d be hidden from anyone coming in the front door.

The handle rattled again. She heard a rustling and envisioned him searching his pockets for the key she’d given him. She looked at her desk. Next to the laptop was the key.

In true Ian fashion, he’d forgotten it.

“Chloe?” he yelled through the door. “Are you still in there?”

She opened her mouth but Steve tightened his grip. She felt the gun against her head, bruising her temple.

“Chloe!” He pounded on the door.

And then…silence.

She went still, trying to hear something, anything, but then she knew. He was running around the back, where he’d come in the kitchen door. There’d be a fight, with no guarantee of the outcome.

She couldn’t let that happen. “I feel funny,” she whispered to Steve.

“Ah, hell. Don’t you dare puke.” He loosened his grip and she whirled, grabbing the laptop off the desk as she did. Using her momentum as Steve aimed the gun at her, she cracked him right in the face with the hard plastic casing.

The computer fell to the floor, leaving Steve, who’d lost his hold on her, standing there with a stunned look on his face. The gun lay uselessly on the floor beside him.

Run, Chloe told herself, but her feet didn’t move.

Steve, still staring at her, blinked once, then fell backward to the ground, hitting with a sickening thud that didn’t bode well for his head.

The kitchen door burst open and Ian came running, skidding to a stop at the sight of her standing there in nothing but a towel, over Steve’s prone body.

“I’m fine,” she told him, then pointed to Steve. “But him, I’m not so sure about.”

Ian rolled Steve over, secured him with a set of handcuffs, kicked the gun away from him, then surged to his feet and reached for Chloe, who’d never been more happy to be held by someone in her entire life.

More officers came running in, including Ian’s partner, and for a moment, everything became wild and chaotic all over again. Questions were asked, answers given and then more questions.

Chloe’s head whirled with all she’d been through since yesterday evening, but Ian hadn’t let go of her except to pull off his shirt and put it on her. He was holding her so close she hadn’t yet managed to get out of the towel and into some clothes.

“I can’t believe I almost let him get you.” Ian ran his hands up and down her yet again, as if to reassure himself she was really here, alive and whole.

“It’s over,” she said, now comforting him. “And we’re okay.”

“Yeah.” Ian stroked her hair and glanced over her shoulder at Steve, who was still looking dazed as the cops pulled him to his feet. Paramedics had arrived but he wasn’t going to the hospital, or if he was, it’d be a short trip on the way to jail, where he’d soon enough be reunited with Al, his brother and partner in crime.

When everyone eventually piled out of the house, they were finally alone. It wasn’t for long-Ian had to go into work to face the mountain of paperwork-but for now, Chloe just held him, never wanting to let go.

“I wanted to be the one to save you, you know,” he said.

“You did.”

“No. You didn’t need saving.”

“Of course I did.” Emotion swamped her. “I needed you to save me from certain incorrect notions. Such as the world is black and white. But I now know it’s not. There’s gray, a lot of it, along with…”

He seemed to hold his breath. “With…”

“Love.” She smiled tremulously and set her hands on his jaw.

He wrapped her close. “God, I love you, Chloe. Always have, always will.”

“Now see, that’s working for me.” Her voice was husky with all the emotion swamping her. “I love you, too, Ian. I always have, always will.” She let out a soggy laugh. “I guess this means my karma couldn’t have really taken a vacation to the Bahamas, right?”

He still had his arms around her tightly. “I thought you didn’t believe in karma.”

“Maybe I was just scared of it.” She cupped his face. “I’ve faced scarier things now. And I’ve learned life’s too short not to live it to its fullest.”

“Well, then-” he smiled and slipped a hand beneath the shirt he’d given her, and then tugged on the towel beneath “-let’s get to that living…”

To Jill, Jacquie and Brenda.

Thank you for inviting me to battle

Madame Karma’s curse!

“DID YOU KNOW I’m cursed?”

Seated shotgun in the Jeep Grand Cherokee, Erin Holland capped off the impetuous comment with a laugh and turned away from her date to peer out the window. Outside, the gray Pacific Ocean lengthened against a moody sky. The odd hot spell that’d consumed southern California last week had gone back into hiding, leaving behind the regular February grumble of weather.

After a beat passed, she glanced at her date again. She wasn’t sure why she’d even been talking to him about her psychic reading from last weekend. “Have you ever been to a fortune-teller?”

Wes Ryan steered with effortless grace. Heck, that’s how he did everything-effortlessly, but with an edge of deliberation and cockiness.

He grinned at her, slow, assured. “Nope, never.” Wes turned back to his driving. “How did she curse you?”

“She didn’t curse me. Not really. She just said I’d need to…” Erin paused, second-guessing the wisdom of telling him everything. Why had she even brought all this up? Instead, she was vague. “I doubted her prediction, and she said that my negativity would curse me unless I decided to go with the flow.” There. “That’s all.”

As Wes absorbed that, Erin took a second longer than she should’ve to linger over him.

The first time she’d seen him-Wes Ryan, the notorious player who ate women for breakfast, lunch and dinner-she’d been hooked. He’d been standing a few yards away at a party when she’d glanced over to find him leaning against a wall, beer bottle tilted in his hand as he watched her talking with her friends.

Maybe it was because he was the perfect man for her current situation: anticommitment, only interested in thrills and feel-good chills. Or maybe Erin had just been a one-man girl for so long that the notion of no-strings-attached sex excited her. Either way, she’d decided then and there to return his forthright interest, locking gazes with him until her skin heated.

It hadn’t been love at first sight or anything-God, she wouldn’t allow herself to fall for anyone again for at least another couple of years-but it was definitely lust. He had a primal way of holding himself, taut yet easy, his black hair kept long enough to get a little wild. He had olive skin, dark eyes that narrowed in cheetahlike hungriness, a nose that arrowed just above generous lips and a dimple in his chin.

Exotic. Suave. All male.

Her blood pounded, thickening until her limbs felt heavy. She started to ache between her thighs, so she turned back to the car’s window, instinctively removing herself from temptation even though she’d knowingly-and very willingly-put herself in its bull’s-eye this weekend.

A romantic getaway. A three-day cruise down to Ensenada, Mexico.

She shifted, suddenly nervous.

“So,” Wes said, “what exactly are you supposed to be flowing with? What’s this prediction you didn’t believe?”

Erin forced herself to relax. Enjoy. “Well, she said business is going to prosper. That was the first part.”

“What’s so hard to believe about that? The candy shop’s already doing really well.”

During their previous, very casual, very lighthearted dates these past couple of weeks, Erin had told him about her and her best friend’s plan to franchise Yes, Sweetie, the candy store they’d conceived long ago, while roommates in college. Their dream. But, now, just thinking about the business risk made her fidget, and that’s not what this weekend was about. She was supposed to be getting away from it all. To have the fun she’d been lacking up until this point.