Mike raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Are you sure? I just spoke to him before I left for Vegas on Thursday.”
“Did you call him or-”
“He called me from his cell.”
“No wires.” Derek shrugged. “Don’t ask me. It makes sense to him, that’s all I know. I paid him a visit on Saturday and he explained to me. I told him as nicely as possible that Gabrielle appreciates his concern but she doesn’t want his spirit-invoking items left in surprise places.” Derek spread his hands in front of him. “I just don’t think it sunk in.”
Mike nodded. “I can’t imagine it would. He’s too obsessed. I’ll see what I can do,” he promised.
But Mike didn’t hold out much hope. Renee, Mike’s mother, had threatened to leave Edward when the craziness became too much for her to handle, and when nothing changed, she followed through. Since then Edward hadn’t changed, only sunken deeper into his own world.
The waitress arrived with their burgers. While she put their plates on the table, Mike silently thought about his parents’ so-called cursed marriage.
Renee had fallen for Edward in the early days when he’d been fairly normal. But before she’d met him, Edward had been in love with another woman, Sara Jean. And Edward’s brother, Thomas, had fallen in love with her, too. When Sara married Thomas, something in Edward died. Rumors she’d been Edward’s second choice and Edward’s own hard-to-live-with personality, which only grew worse over time, led Renee to finally leave him.
Mike’s mother was now happily married to a doctor and living a normal life. Mike envied her.
Mike would do what he could for his cousin and his wife, but knowing Edward, once he had his mind set on a course of action regarding the curse, nothing would change his mind.
Mike turned his attention to lunch. “I’m starving. Long day in court,” he said, taking a large bite of the burger without bothering to add ketchup first.
“So on to more exciting things. How was Vegas?” Derek asked, taking a bite, as well.
At the mention of the subject Mike had been trying not to think about without any success, he lost his appetite.
“That good a time?” Derek asked into the silence.
Mike knew if there was anyone he could trust with the truth, it was his cousin Derek. “You know that expression ‘what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas’?”
The other man inclined his head. “Yeah…?”
Mike drew a deep breath and told his cousin the entire story.
“So basically both the woman and the cash stayed in Vegas,” Derek concluded for him. He shook his head. “Holy shit. Why don’t you press charges? You’re a cop, after all.”
“That is why. Where’s my credibility after I admit publicly that I let myself be taken in by the oldest con in the book?” And that’s what still got to him.
What prevented him from sleeping on the plane back to Boston late Saturday night and again in his own bed last evening. How had he misread Amber so completely? Her sincere gaze, her genuine excitement, that
“I have to talk to her again first.” Because things just didn’t add up. He was a cop who acted on gut instinct and he was seldom wrong.
“Ego.” Derek finished his soda and signaled for a refill. “You can’t admit she conned you, so you’re going to let her get away with it?”
“I’m going back to Vegas first chance I get. I’m going to find her, and then get some answers, and a divorce.”
“Don’t forget to press charges,” Derek said. “Now I have another question for you.”
“Shoot.”
“To quote Jay Leno to Hugh Grant, ‘What the hell were you thinking?’”
He hadn’t been thinking. He’d been feeling and everything he’d felt had been so damn good. Which only made him feel more like a fool in the cold light of day.
“Never mind. Let me know when you plan to go back. I’ll go along and help you out,” Derek said.
“I appreciate it.” But Mike probably wouldn’t call his cousin.
Next time he faced Amber, he wanted to be alone.
A little while later, Mike left Derek and headed to the station to finish up some paperwork before starting his shift tomorrow. He’d taken today off in case court ran long, so he might as well make productive use of the rest of his day.
By the time he headed home, jet lag and plain old exhaustion beat at him. He let himself into his apartment and was immediately on alert. The dead bolt wasn’t flipped shut. He’d been tired this morning, but he couldn’t have been too tired to lock up.
Hand on his holstered weapon, he stepped inside. Everything seemed normal. He walked through the entry, gave a cursory glance into the kitchen, passed the empty den, entered his bedroom and nearly keeled over.
Amber lay in his bed wearing nothing but one of his collared shirts. She was a vision. The shirt was buttoned low, showing off a generous hint of cleavage, making his mouth water. Her long, bare legs peeked from beneath the hem of the too-big shirt. Her red-painted toenails teased him from beneath his navy blanket. And those riotous blond curls fell over her shoulders in gorgeous disarray, making him forget everything but his body’s immediate and obvious reaction.
He blinked, certain she was nothing more than a mirage, but when he opened his eyes, the vision remained. That was when he noticed the rest.
She lay on his bed surrounded by cold hard cash.
“Amber?”
He still didn’t believe she was real, even as every emotion imaginable rushed through him, from desire to relief, shock to gratitude, curiosity back to desire again.
Until she spoke. “Hi, honey, I’m home.” She waved at him.
Anger, the emotion he should have felt first, finally emerged. “What the hell is going on?”
“I know you’re angry and you have every right to be, but before you say another word, look around me. Money. Granted, it isn’t all of it, in fact it’s half. Less cab money and airline fare, but I can explain-”
“Get dressed.” He stepped forward and began collecting the clothes she’d left scattered at the foot of the bed, tossing them at her. “I’ll meet you in the other room.”
He couldn’t think clearly when she was stark naked beneath his shirt, lying seductively in his bed. Memories of making love to her came at him from all sides and he needed his head on straight to deal with her rationally like the sober cop he was now, not the guy who’d rescued her in Vegas and then let her sucker him.
IT COULD HAVE GONE WORSE, Amber thought. She’d seen a flicker of desire in Mike’s gaze before he’d banked it in favor of his anger.
She could work with that flicker. Amber had one goal and one only-she wanted to get back to having a real life, one similar to her life before her father had grown ill. Mike and this sudden marriage offered her possibilities she wanted to explore more fully. And she wanted that chance.
Before he could let his emotions overcome him and refuse to deal with her at all, she slipped on her shoes and headed for the other room.
She found him, arms crossed, staring out the window onto the street below. Her heels clicked on the wood floor and he turned at the sound of her approach.
“I thought I told you to get dressed.”
She glanced down at her sandal-clad feet and the shirt that covered as much as any skirt and top would. “I
“That’s not what I meant.” He exhaled a frustrated sound. “Never mind.” He shifted his hands to his hips. “Go on. Explain.”
She followed his movement with her gaze and paused. “Would you mind taking off your gun first?”
He rolled his eyes and removed his gun, muttering under his breath the entire time. “It’s not like I’d shoot you,” he said finally.
“You look pretty upset, not that I blame you.”
He held up one hand. “Start at the beginning. It was a scam, right?”
