Carly Phillips - Simply Sinful

“You’ve got some color back in your cheeks,” he noted.

And it had nothing to do with good health, she thought wryly. “I feel better. Up to tackling those boxes, anyway.” She gestured to the opened cartons spread around the room.

“You showered.” He fingered her freshly washed hair.

She grinned. “Even I couldn’t share the bed with me a minute longer.”

“You should have called me.”

“So you could stand guard outside the bathroom? I’m not an invalid,” she assured him. And she didn’t want him treating her as one. His attention was nice, but she didn’t want his pity.

“I started without you.”

“Find anything interesting?” Her initial inspection of the contents had been cursory at best.

He shook his head. “There’re three huge boxes here.”

“I packed two of those myself. They lived in an apartment and the landlord wanted it emptied as soon as possible. Economics.” She grimaced. “Anyway, Catherine and I gave most of their belongings to the Salvation Army. My uncle had a niece that wanted some of his personal things. Catherine and I boxed the rest to go through later.”

“So the crossword puzzles…” His hand settled over the box nearest him.

“Anagrams and things. My aunt loved them. So did my mother. I used to do some when I was younger. I figured maybe I’d get back into them myself one day.” She shrugged. “The other box has knickknacks that have been in my family for years.”

“How old were you when your mother died?”

The question surprised her. It was as unexpected as it was unnecessary. “Didn’t your investigation reveal such a minute detail about my life?” she asked.

“Yes.” He had the grace to look ashamed despite the fact he’d merely been doing his job.

“So why ask?”

“Because I like hearing about you from you.”

She glanced down at her hands. It was her turn to be ashamed. She’d already forgiven him. She believed what he’d told her earlier-that when he’d slept with her, his job hadn’t been on his mind. It had brought him into her life but it hadn’t kept him there. When Captain Reid had denied protection, Kane could have walked away. He hadn’t.

“What about the business books?” he asked, obviously noting her silence and respecting her wishes by changing the subject.

“I was twenty, Catherine was twenty-one.” She answered his earlier question. “It was as if Mama chose the optimal time to let herself go. Neither one of us had to face social services or being separated.”

“Wouldn’t your aunt have taken care of you?”

“I suppose, but Mama loved us and wanted the best for both of us. Aunt Charlene never had kids and only related well to me because we both had that-” she tapped her head “-extra intelligence, I guess you could call it. But she had a harder time with Catherine because they had less in common.”

“I’m sorry-for both of you.”

She shrugged. “What you lived through was worse.” His eyes grew shuttered. His face cleared of expression, almost as if a curtain slammed down, closing out any audience to his soul.

She hadn’t reached his inner depths yet, but with time and patience, she would. “I have all the books,” she said, accepting his parameters. “That’s what’s so strange. On the phone, he said he wanted the books. But I’ve been doing them for the past year. Nothing unusual. No extra income, nothing unaccounted for…”

“They stashed the money somewhere.”

Although she hadn’t reached his emotions, his words tapped into her own. Kayla grabbed his sweatshirt, desperate for him to understand and believe. “They didn’t stash anything. Whatever my uncle may or may not have been up to, my aunt wasn’t into prostitution.”

He met her gaze, his eyes darkening to the color of a stormy sea. “That remains to be seen.”

“No. My family may not be as fine as some, but I assure you we draw the line at sleaze.”

“I wasn’t accusing her…or you. But the fact remains someone wants something from you…and he doesn’t much care how he gets it.”

“I know.” Just the thought of her attacker’s voice sent tremors of fear spiraling through her.

Kane grabbed hold of her wrists. His protective warmth eased the terror. “Nothing will happen to you, but we have to find out who these people are and find the books they’re looking for. To put an end to all this once and for all.”

All this included them. She could read the truth in his eyes and planned to fight it. She just wasn’t sure how.

Needing distance, Kayla placed her hands on her jeans and stood. Kane’s gaze followed the movement, his eyes traveling the length of her and back. A sensual gleam lit his expression. Swiping a black V-neck Lycra top from Catherine’s closet had been a good idea for more reasons than warmth. She doubted her own silk blouses would have elicited the same heated response.

Apparently the trail toward Kane’s heart began with sex. Under normal circumstances, Kayla wouldn’t offer herself as an object; she’d spent too many years fighting the idea. But Kane was different from other men. For the first time, she intended to use her God-given assets to their best advantage.

“I started with this box,” he said. “I figure maybe there’s something hidden in one of these puzzle books.”

“Like?”

“I don’t know yet.”

She wanted answers as much as she wanted Kane. Kneeling beside him, each movement she made was deliberate and calculated. She reached inside the large cardboard carton, bending close enough to smell his cologne and far enough over to give him a glimpse inside her shirt…if he cared to look.

She darted a glimpse out of the corner of her eye. He didn’t notice her watching him. His gaze was glued to her cleavage, his eyes cloudy, his cheekbones pulled tight.

She suppressed a smile. Despite the less than perfect circumstances and the threat hanging over her, she had Detective Kane McDermott just where she wanted him. The last time he’d lost his focus, they’d had sex. And she had every intention of making it happen again. Only this time, it wouldn’t be just sex. After she coaxed him into opening up to her, it would be nothing less than making love.

For now, she would tackle what was within her control. She perused each page, smiling as she remembered how both her mother and her aunt would curl up for hours with this pastime. Her mother had been hiding from life. Her aunt had just plain enjoyed the escape. Kayla shut the paperback and laid it on the floor. “Nothing here.”

“The ones I’ve looked through are all completed. Your aunt was an expert.”

Kayla grinned. “Easier to be an expert when you work in pencil. Erase your mistakes, cheat a little by checking the back.” She laughed aloud. “Aunt Charlene was pretty good. Mama did more cheating than her sister. She made more mistakes, too.”

“And you made none at all?”

“I’m not perfect, Kane.”

He raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

She glanced at the book in her hand, one that looked like a dime-store crossword, but held precious family memories. “This one’s completed, too.”

“Let’s cover them all. I don’t want to miss anything important.”

Half an hour later, Kayla wanted to scream. They’d been through more than half the box. The pencil-smudged books were all the same. Most finished, the last few half-finished. She grabbed for the next book in the box. “This is ridiculous.”

“Just keep looking.”

She curled into a more comfortable position, picked up a pencil and grabbed the next book. This time, she started working the puzzles, much as her aunt had probably done. She chose puzzles and individual questions at random and, just as she suspected, her answers matched Aunt Charlene’s. They would, of course, since her aunt had been as intellectual and meticulous as Kayla was.

Gnawing on the end of the pencil, she tossed the book down and went for the next one. Fifteen minutes and three books later, she began finding mistakes. Obvious ones. Ones her aunt would never have made.

Unless she’d done so on purpose. And considering Kayla had also begun finding a pattern of last names in the puzzles, she suspected these were more than game books. The implication of that sent chills crawling along her skin, and she groaned aloud.

“Find something?”

She glanced at Kane, knowing she had to reveal her discovery, hating it at the same time. “Mistakes in the entries, names instead of answers,” she muttered.

He raised an eyebrow. “Let me take a look.”

She handed him the two books she’d made headway with and he scanned the pages along with her notes. “Looks like pay dirt.”

She frowned. “Don’t sound so pleased.”

“It’s better than coming up empty.”

“What’s the date on that first one?” Kayla asked.

“Date?”

“Every book has a handwritten date next to the first puzzle.”

“Hadn’t noticed,” he muttered.

“Marks your progress from month to month, or year to year. Didn’t I mention my family was slightly neurotic?”

“No, but you should have. We could have started at the bottom of the box and come up with something sooner. Come on.”

“Where?”

“These books need to be decoded and you need your strength to do it.”

“So I can prove my aunt guilty of prostitution and lose my business in the process?” she asked. Kayla might have been ambivalent about putting her dreams on hold for the sake of the business, but she refused to damage her aunt’s reputation to get her life back. Aunt Charlene had been the only person other than Catherine who understood Kayla and all her emotional insecurities-because she’d suffered much of them herself. Kayla had no intention of betraying her in the worst possible way.

“So we can exonerate her and save Charmed!’s reputation through you.” He glanced down at the first book she’d found with any discrepancy. “This dates back eight months. But Charmed! had been in business for a little over fifteen years.”

She nodded.

“Your aunt married your uncle a little under a year ago and took him in as a partner almost immediately.”

She didn’t question his knowledge. “Yes.” Kayla did the math. “The date on the first book coincides with Charles Bishop’s entry into the escort business.” She heard her voice rising in pitch. “Which gives him opportunity.”

“Do you have a reason to suspect the man of anything?”

She shook her head. “Nothing more than sweeping Aunt Charlene off her feet. But the names in these books began around the time he joined the business.”

“Which makes him an equal suspect.” Kane grasped her hand.

He obviously sought to reassure, but tremors of awareness acted to arouse her instead. He had no right to be so distracting when so much was at stake. “You may have to face the fact that your aunt wasn’t an innocent victim,” he said.

She shook her head. “Not without concrete, irrefutable proof.” The kind of proof she intended to get to exonerate her aunt. She didn’t want to believe her aunt’s husband had betrayed the woman he professed to love, but better her uncle be found guilty than her aunt. Kayla believed in Charlene.

Kane nodded. “Okay then. We have our work cut out for us.”

“We? Does that mean you believe me?”

“Yes.”

One little word with a wealth of meaning. She glanced at him for confirmation and found it in the warm blue of his eyes.

“Kayla…” He held his gaze steady with hers. “I believe your faith in your aunt is unshakeable unless we find out otherwise. But I have to reserve judgment until the facts are in.”

Kane the cop, Kayla thought. And that was okay. Because hidden in all that qualification was one unmistakable fact: he believed in her. No one other than Catherine or Aunt Charlene ever had.

She didn’t think. One minute she was standing beside him and the next she’d wrapped her arms around his neck. “Thank you.” She molded her body against his, trying to tell herself it was gratitude. She knew better.

His hands snaked around her waist. If he wanted to push her away, now was the moment, she thought. His grip tightened. The masculine groan and the unmistakable hardness pressing against her told her he wasn’t going anywhere, at least for now.

Another second’s thought and he might back off emotionally. Kayla recognized her one opportunity to reach inside Kane and make him hers. To do it, she’d have to reach inside herself as well. Take the ultimate risk, and defy every principle by which she’d lived so far. She took two steps back. With trembling hands, she reached for the hem of her shirt. She drew it over her head and tossed the garment onto the floor.

KANE TOOK IN THE VISION before him and tried to catch his breath.