His Partner's Wife (20 page)

"We've known each other a long time."

Natalie couldn't tell what he was thinking, and that made
her more nervous. "Yes."

"Don't you usually quit noticing what friends look
like, when you've known them long enough?"

She nodded almost reluctantly. It was true. Her roommate in
college had been a girl with burn scars, but she'd no longer seen them after a
while.

"So why," he said very softly, "can't you
quit noticing I'm a man?"

Because she was attracted to him.

A tiny shock almost stilled her heart. She'd known the
answer all along. Maybe, on some level, she had always been drawn to him.

Wordless, she met his eyes.

He took a step closer. She found herself sliding off the
stool to face him. He was a large man; she did sometimes forget that. But right
now she was exquisitely conscious of his broad chest and shoulders, his looming
height, of the way he dwarfed her.

"Could it be," he said, in that same silky voice,
"for the same reason I can't forget you're a woman?"

She sounded very strange, as if she heard herself through a
long tunnel. "And why is that?"

His intensity arced to her, as powerful as a touch.
"Because, God help me, I keep thinking about kissing you."

Natalie drew a shaky breath and chose truth. Her heartbeat
deafened her. "I've … thought the same thing. Sometimes."

He said something she didn't understand, something rough,
profanity maybe. The next thing she knew, one of his big hands wrapped around
her nape and his mouth descended to hers.

Chapter
9

«
^
»

U
p until the moment
his mouth closed over Natalie's, John could still hear the
voice of his common sense.

Don't do this. Think about everything you have to lose.

One taste of her evoked stunning hunger that drowned that
common sense. She was sweet, soft, responsive. The memory of how her body felt
pressed to his had been imprinted since Friday night, as if the fear of losing
her had sharpened sensation. Now she fit against him as if she belonged.

If he'd thought at all, he would have kept the kiss light, something
they could both dismiss afterward if it wasn't a success. Friends pecked each
other on the lips, didn't they?

Friends didn't kiss each other like this, with desperation
and mindless passion.

One of his hands cupped the back of her head; the other
gripped her buttock as he lifted and pressed her against him. He came up for
air only when he had to. She let out small whimpers and tugged at his hair
until he bent his head again. John backed her against the table and lifted her
so that he could cradle himself between her thighs. He was so damned hard,
aching for her, ready to have her here, now. With a free hand he lifted her
T-shirt and cupped her breast, glorying in the weight and fullness and the hard
peak of her nipple against his palm.

She wanted him. She had to want him. This wasn't one-sided.

The knowledge had been there all along, feeding his secret
fantasies about her. Now it roared through him like a Gulf hurricane, the quiet
eye of certainty surrounded by whipping turmoil.

She sighed, nipped his neck, her mouth damp. He knotted his
fingers in her hair and lifted her face to claim her lips again. The drive of
his tongue mimicked the primitive urge that had his hips shoving against her.

"Daddy!" came a distant, indignant cry.

John jerked and dragged his mouth from Natalie's. He was
disoriented, taking a couple of seconds to realize his kids were just upstairs.
Squabbling, of course. Wanting his intervention.

He sucked in ragged breaths as he fought for control. He'd
forgotten his own children. How could he?

Natalie had stiffened under his hands. Her breasts were
rising and falling as she, too, gasped for air. Her lips glistened and looked
swollen. He wanted to nip her lower lip, demand entrance. He wanted to carry
her into his bedroom and lock the door, to hell with his children.

"Daddy!" came Evan's whine. "Maddie's being
mean!"

The telephone rang. John groaned.

"It's … it's just as well." Natalie was inching
back and trying to straighten her clothes.

"No, damn it, it's not!" he snapped, his fingers
biting into her arms.

She lifted startled eyes to his. Her pupils were dilated,
her cheeks pink.

He made himself flex his fingers and release her. "I've
been wanting to do that for a long time."

He hoped for a glorious, shy smile and a whispered admission
that she felt the same. Instead, her gaze slipped from his and she said,
"Shouldn't you answer the phone?"

Tautly John said, "That's what the answering machine is
for."

"Da-ad." His daughter's voice neared. "Evan's
being a brat."

His own voice could be heard as the answering machine kicked
in. "You've reached the McLean residence. We can't take your call right
now. Leave a message."

The kids tore into the kitchen at the exact same moment that
Hugh started speaking. "Call me, John. You asked me to check out those
rumors. You're not going to like this, but it seems they're dead-on."
Click.

Natalie had slid from the table and he'd backed up a couple
of feet. Anyone older than eight would have caught some vibes. His children
didn't.

His son launched the first salvo in a whine.
"She
says we
have to watch…"

"No TV." John's voice had a snap they seldom
heard. "You can't agree, you lose. Straight to bed."

Their mouths dropped open.

"But, Dad…!" Maddie began.

"Now."

They went without another word, expressions chastened. Hell,
maybe he should crack down more often.

Why should he play ump? Let them work out the rules.

He turned to see that Natalie was edging toward the door to
follow them. "Natalie…"

She shoved a hand into her tangled hair. "Let's not
talk tonight, okay? Tomorrow?"

He wouldn't have known what to say anyway.
Don't read too much into one kiss.
Or,
Read as
much into it as you want.

Talking had never been hard for them, although they'd had
their best conversations on the telephone. Maybe he should call her tomorrow at
work. Say things that were difficult in person.

But he knew he wouldn't. Seeing the nuances of expression on
her face had become too important. Words weren't enough anymore.

"Yeah. Okay," he said. His voice roughened.
"Just don't…"

She paused in the doorway. "Don't what?"

"Don't be sorry."

From the way her gaze flitted from his, she already was, he
saw with dread.

She only nodded and left. Fled, because he hadn't listened
to the sane voice of his common sense.

Don't blow a friendship you need so badly,
it had tried to tell him.

She was a guest in his house. What a time to come on to her.
John faced how he'd feel if tomorrow she made an excuse to go stay with a woman
friend. He'd been damned lucky she trusted him so implicitly.

But he was still hard, his body still thrumming with raw
sexual need. He couldn't remember wanting a woman like this. How did you divert
a hurricane from its path?

John swore aloud, his voice harsh in the empty room.

He was almost grateful to remember Hugh's message.

Until he pushed Play and listened to it again.

The rumors he'd asked him to check out had to do with a
missing shipment of heroin and the dubious stories of cops who'd made it
disappear. They were dead-on?

John went into his study to call his brother, who answered
on the third ring.

"Thought that message would get you," he said,
when John had identified himself.

John had no patience tonight. "What do you mean,
dead-on?"

"I found somebody who says he'd testify in court that
he tipped off Stuart Reed about a good half million dollars worth of white
stuff coming into the country. Next morning, the boat was found adrift and the
two men who were supposed to be on it weren't. I vaguely remember the incident.
Coast Guard handled it, but they contacted Port Dare P.D. because they
suspected drugs had something to do with it."

"We get tips all the time," John said impatiently.
"You know most of them are worth crap."

"According to my source, there were actually three people
on that boat. One of them got away. He might talk if we're persuasive enough,
my informant says. And what he'll tell us is, cops had something to do with
it."

John wanted to be shocked. Or disbelieving. Not coldly angry
and convinced despite himself.

"You get a name?"

"I got a name," Hugh said in a hard voice. "I
think I can be persuasive."

"I figured."

John rubbed the back of his neck. "Your source thinks
the cop was Stuart Reed."

"Yeah." Hugh was silent for a moment. "I'm
sorry, John. I know he was your friend."

"Not that good a one, apparently."

Head pounding anew, John wondered how he would tell Natalie.
She'd loved her husband. How would she deal with the knowledge he was crooked?

Or had she known?

"No." Not Natalie. She was too honest. Had been too
shocked at finding the body in Stuart's den. Stuart couldn't have told her.

If anyone else was investigating this case, that wouldn't be
enough.

"No what?" his brother asked.

"I was thinking aloud." John swore. "This
opens a can of worms."

"Oh, yeah." Something rustled in the background,
and John easily pictured Hugh unwrapping one of those peppermints he sucked
incessantly since he'd quit smoking two years ago. "We should bring
Internal Affairs into it."

"Not yet," John said, too quickly. He let his head
fall back and lightly bump the wall. "Let's be sure first. For Natalie's
sake, if not Stuart's."

His brother had the goodness—or the sense—not to question
Natalie's honesty.

"You going to take Baxter to talk to this guy?"

John went with instinct. "I want you."

Silence. "You don't want Baxter to know?"

John closed his eyes. "Not yet. Let's keep it to
ourselves until we hear this guy's story."

Funny, brothers could and did argue about anything. But they
also knew when to say agreeably, "I'm all yours tomorrow."

Hugh's source
had
even known where to find Jens Lindmark. He lived in a decent condo—owned, not
rented, John had checked—with a waterfront view from the second-story balcony.
He carried no mortgage and wouldn't have been given one, considering his lack
of employment history.

At eight-thirty sharp, Hugh rang the doorbell. John
contemplated the nice planter box with pansies peeping from beneath a purplish
grass.

No answer. Hugh glanced at his watch and gave Lindmark one
minute, than rang again. And again. Third time was the charm.

Muffled swearing and finally footsteps preceded the
unbolting of a dead bolt. A thin, narrow-faced man in his thirties wearing
nothing but low-slung pajama bottoms yanked open the door.

"What the hell do you want?" His eyes narrowed as
he took in Hugh's uniform and then John, a step behind. He growled an
obscenity. "Cops. You couldn't wait until nine o'clock? Ten o'clock?"

"The early bird…"

This obscenity was blistering.