Clandestine Christmas. Elle James

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СКАЧАТЬ curls into a Panama hat of frizz.

      Standing on the sweltering asphalt, she closed the car door then wiped at a one-inch spot on her vest, a little memento her eight-month-old daughter, Bonny, had bestowed upon her that morning. Giving up, she pulled the vest closer to her torso, the weight of the stun gun she called The Equalizer and a small canister of pepper spray she had tucked into a belt just inside the waist of her gauze skirt reassuringly familiar. For the past few years she’d never needed anything more to protect herself. Which was good, because even when she was a NYC police officer, she’d never much liked carrying a revolver.

      After today she wouldn’t need any of this paraphernalia at all.

      Still, goodbyes were something she’d never much liked. Saying adios to rusty rental cars, meals caught on the run and chasing bail-jumpers wasn’t that big a deal. But bidding adieu to her boss, Elliott Blackstone, was going to be a little bigger. She’d worked with him for the past three years. In an indirect way, he’d made it possible for her to switch career paths to trade in her bounty hunter title for that of private investigator. After today, that’d be official. She eagerly looked forward to planting her feet firmly on that new path just as soon as she closed the gate to this one.

      She pulled open the glass door to Blackstone Bail and Bonds and welcomed the swell of cold, air-conditioned air that swept over her.

      Five minutes later, she wondered if the obstacle that had just plopped down in the middle of her path came any larger—and that by no means referred to Elliott’s considerable size.

      “I can’t pay you, Hannah.” Elliott Blackstone hovered somewhere in his mid- to late-forties, his passionate dislike of parting with anything green that had a picture of a president on it one of his defining traits. She understood this about him. In fact, after the first few occasions, she’d come to look forward to their little tugs-of-war. But this wasn’t the usual Elliott pleading poverty even though his posh office could easily match that of a banker. No, Hannah had the piercing sensation he was serious.

      “El, I’m already late picking up Bonny because you sent Jack Stokes out on the same run. Can’t we just finish up here and call it a day?”

      Blackstone cleared his throat. “Where is Stokes, anyway?”

      Hannah remembered the dim interior of The Bar in South Jamaica, Queens, where she had picked up bail-jumper Eddie Fowler an hour before. “Probably still handcuffed to a bar rail. Unless someone took pity on him.” She smiled. “Though that’s highly unlikely.”

      Elliott tugged a handkerchief from the front pocket of his silk-blend suit and mopped his forehead.

      Hannah glanced at her watch, then sat in the visitor’s chair opposite him. “Okay, why don’t you start from the beginning.”

      He fell silent for a good thirty ticks of the antique grandfather clock in the corner. “You know I wouldn’t mess you around on something like this, Hannah. I always pay you on time.” He sighed.

      But this time was different. She’d just completed her last run and her new business waited. She needed the money now.

      “El—”

      He shifted his bulk in the leather chair. “You been watching the news lately?”

      “I haven’t turned on the TV or picked up a newspaper since last week.” She wanted to add it was because she was setting up her new business in a rented office downtown, but didn’t. “Are you telling me you did something newsworthy and I missed it?”

      Elliott laughed without humor. “No, not me. Two of my clients.” He regarded her as if gauging her disposition then pursed his fleshy lips. “Would you mind if I introduce someone else into our discussion? There’s someone else waiting in the connecting office. Someone I need on this case as much as I need you.”

      Case? Before she could ask him what he meant, he got up then crossed to open a door. “I think it’s safe.”

      The moment the visitor strode into the room, Elliott’s warning made sense.

      Oh, yes, the obstacle in her path could get bigger. And had. By two times.

      Hannah looked at the man who had walked out of her life fifteen months ago without a second glance. The man she had loved and wanted to marry. Only it wasn’t Chad Hogan who had needed Blackstone’s warning. Chad had nothing to fear from her.

      She, on the other hand, had everything to fear from him.

      Chad’s gaze slid over her body, making her skin grow markedly warmer. Her vest and skirt more than adequately covered her, but the open way Chad looked at her made her feel as if she wore very little.

      Elliott stepped between her and her ex-partner. “I know this must come as a shock, Hannah. But I think once I explain, you’ll understand why I flew Chad in from Florida.”

      She barely heard Elliott’s words. She swallowed back a year’s worth of memories, hardly aware of the interrogation-like silence that had settled over the room.

      “I can’t believe you did this, Elliott.” Hannah’s voice sounded like it had spiraled from the bottom of a barrel.

      “Listen to me for a minute,” he pleaded. “I need you both—”

      “I think you need your head examined,” she snapped. Reluctantly she looked at Chad, as if silently asking him to confirm her assessment of the situation. When he spoke, the deep timbre of his voice was as powerful as his presence. “You look great, Hannah.”

      That was the last thing she’d expected him to say.

      Through the door to the reception area, Hannah overheard someone arguing with the receptionist. In a corner of her mind that still worked, she distantly realized it was Stokes.

      Elliott sighed. “Why don’t I leave you two alone to iron out your differences, huh? I’ve got to go straighten out…whatever is going on outside.”

      The door closed behind Elliott. Like a spinning carnival ride, the room seemed to grow distinctly smaller. The distance Hannah stood away from Chad seemed to lessen by inches, though neither of them had moved. Chad was gazing at her with that…look. That half-lidded look that said so much, yet promised so little.

      “How are you doing, Hannah?”

      She absently rubbed the goose bumps spreading over her skin. “Doing? I’m fine, I guess. You?”

      Often, she’d wondered what she would do on the off chance she ever saw Chad again. She’d rehearsed what she might say. Or rather, what she wouldn’t say. But now…now she realized all her preparations were for naught. Nothing could have prepared her for facing a man who commanded a room merely by standing in it. And time certainly hadn’t changed that trait, even if he displayed some other more noticeable changes.

      “We never were very good at small talk, were we?” She thought she detected a measure of uneasiness in his question. Chad, uneasy? She walked to the wet bar in the corner of the office, needing to put distance between not only her and Chad, but between the present and the past. She picked up a delicate porcelain cup and poured herself some coffee, the shaking of her hands preventing her from pouring more than an ounce.

      “I think any kind of verbal communication was a problem with us.” СКАЧАТЬ