The Protector. Jule McBride

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СКАЧАТЬ he’d unsettled her. Her gaze faltered, but when she spoke, her voice was level. “Steele,” she said, “I’m not made of ice.”

      “I said my father might be dead.”

      “I know that. And I have compassion for your situation,” she added, her voice catching huskily. “I really do.”

      “Compassion?” he echoed. What did this by-the-book woman know about how Sully’s mother was feeling right now? Did Judith know Sheila was just five blocks away, pacing around the courtyard garden behind the brownstone where Sully and his brothers had grown up? Or that Rex was giving up his vacation to join in the desperate search to find their father? Or that Truman was glued to a phone, questioning contacts, while Judith was planning her little jaunt over to Seduction Island? He’d never been there, but he’d visited vacation spots close to the New York shore such as Plum and Fire Islands. Even at that distance from the bustle of New York City, the waters of the Atlantic became crystal clear and cerulean.

      “Compassion,” Sully repeated dryly. “Oh, Ms. Hunt, I’m sure you’ve got it just the way they’ve got everything else downtown.”

      Her eyes turned watchful. “How’s that?”

      “In quadruplicates.”

      Her chin lifted a notch. What she said next seemed to cost her. “You’re wrong about me, Steele.”

      He didn’t think so, but he let it pass. They stared at each other a moment, and were still doing so long after other people would have looked away.

      “If you think of anything…” Her voice trailed off, and before he could answer, she turned to go, a whiff of soft female scent cutting through the sweat of the squad room. She was across the threshold when she looked back. There was something odd about how she did it, too, Sully thought, because she glanced back the way a lover might, not an adversary. It was as if she had to make sure he was still standing there, watching her walk away. Her gorgeous crimson lips parted, as if she really wanted to say more.

      He arched an eyebrow. “Something else I can do for you, Ms. Hunt?”

      She looked at him another long moment, then shook her head. “Uh…no. But…” Her face was unreadable. “Look, Steele, I’ll let you know whatever I can about the matter.”

      The matter. Hearing his father referenced that way was almost as unsettling as hearing him called a suspect. Especially since Augustus Steele was as straight as an arrow. He’d made the grade at Police Plaza, joining the crème de la crème of the NYPD, because that’s where he belonged.

      “Really,” Judith added. “I’ll let you know.”

      Sully doubted it, but he nodded, anyway. “I’ll call you if he contacts me.” That, too, was probably a lie.

      She nodded back, curt and businesslike. It shouldn’t have made fluorescent lights play in her dark hair, or intriguing shadows dance across her pale cheeks like whimsical phantoms. The things Sully was noticing about her at the moment had no place in a police precinct, but for a second—the space of a breath—he was sure he and this woman were going to wind up in bed. Like how the sun rose and set, there were just some things a man could take for granted.

      And then the second passed.

      “I’ll look forward to hearing from you then,” she murmured.

      “It’s always interesting,” he agreed, then added, “Happy sailing.”

      She quirked a brow.

      “On Seduction Island,” he reminded her.

      “It’s work,” she said, looking as if she was starting to have difficulty keeping her cool. “Not a vacation.”

      He wasn’t sure, but as she turned to leave, he could swear Judith Hunt added a softly whispered, “Dammit, Steele.”

      That brought a smile to his lips. He watched her go then—his jaw setting, his groin tightening, his eyes sliding down the length of her. She was almost too thin, he decided. As willowy as a tall, thin reed, with small, high, firm breasts and slender, flat, boyish hips.

      She was economical in her movements, yet possessed a curious lanky grace that would make her look good in things she’d never wear—feather boas draping across her bare back, floor-length black sheaths slit to her thigh, necklines cut down to her naval, tempting a man to glide a hand inside and push away fabric. Something timeless in her features made it impossible to guess her age. Twenty-five? Thirty? Suddenly, Sully had to know, not that he figured he ever would.

      Realizing she was long gone, he mustered a long-suffering sigh, then shrugged out of the oppressive jacket he’d put on for her benefit. Loosening his tie, he muttered, “Can this day get any worse?”

      “Probably, Cap.” His right-hand man, Nat McFee, stopped in front of him. “While Lips was here, we got a homicide on Bank Street, a three-car pile-up on Seventh Avenue, and Tim Nudel hauled in a suspect from that news kiosk holdup last week. You want to talk to him?”

      Sully shook his head as he backed inside his office. “Nudel can question him. I need a minute.” Maybe longer. He needed time to get Judith out of his system, and to mull over the string of bad luck hitting his family lately. “I haven’t had a chance to breathe since I heard Pop disappeared.”

      “Why not take a walk?” McFee suggested. Before shutting the door behind him, he added, “Why don’t you duck in someplace where the air-conditioning works?”

      Maybe he would. Sully draped his jacket around the chair back, sat down at the desk and thoughtfully unbuttoned and rolled up his sleeves. Pop’s disappeared. Sully could barely believe it. And he meant what he’d told Judith: he was sure his father had stumbled onto wrongdoing. Wherever he was, he’d return with the money as soon as he could.

      Lately, Sully reminded himself, the Steeles had had some good luck, too. As if to reassure himself, he opened a desk drawer and pulled out a letter he’d written about a month ago.

      “Only a month ago?” he murmured.

      An eternity had passed since the day Sheila Steele had announced she’d won fifteen million dollars in the New York Lottery. That day, she’d made the even more astonishing announcement that she wasn’t telling her husband, Augustus, about the winnings. Unless their sons married within the next three months, she’d sworn, she was going to donate the money to preserve natural habitats for wildlife in the Galapagos Islands. Furthermore, she’d stipulated that Sully, Rex and Truman couldn’t tell their prospective mates about the money while wooing them.

      “The Galapagos Islands?” Sully had muttered in disbelief when he and his brothers had retired to his childhood bedroom to discuss the matter.

      “Don’t get me wrong,” his youngest brother, Truman, had said. “I’ve got nothing against sea turtles.”

      Sully had laughed. “Me, neither. It’s the marine iguanas that get on my nerves.”

      “Oh, I don’t know,” their middle brother, Rex, had joked, “penguins are such a pain.”

      Marriage had seemed so unlikely for all of them, and it really did seem as though wild animals might benefit from the win. But now their little brother had proposed to Trudy Busey, a reporter from the New York СКАЧАТЬ