Undercover with the Mob. Elizabeth Bevarly

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СКАЧАТЬ keep a low profile—that was what people did when they were in the Witness Protection Program, right?—and now he was scared that if Natalie had fingered him, the Mob might, too.

      Because, hey, it was common knowledge that mobsters hung out in art museums, she told herself wryly, wanting to smack herself upside the head for her Mrs. Klosterman-like thoughts. If Jack was uncomfortable, it was more likely because she’d made him feel uncomfortable by asking him what she just had. Maybe he was here because he wanted to learn more about art, and he was embarrassed to let her know how unschooled he was on the topic.

      She opened her mouth to change the subject—she did, after all, completely sympathize with that whole being-out-of-one’s element thing, since she’d felt out of her element since the day she was born—but he started to talk again before she had a chance.

      “Yeah, I especially like the Italian masters,” he said.

      But again, he seemed uneasy when he spoke, and instead of looking at Natalie, he was looking at something over her shoulder, as if he couldn’t quite meet her gaze. Oh, jeez, she really had caught him out with her question and embarrassed him, she realized. The male ego, she thought. It was such a fragile thing.

      He was probably only saying the Italian masters were his favorite because he’d glanced down at his hastily rear-ranged program, where it read, in part, The Italian Masters. She told herself to just let the matter drop there. But there was something in his voice when he spoke, something kind of tense, something kind of apprehensive—something kind of suspicious, quite frankly—that gave her pause. And still he was looking over her shoulder, not meeting her eyes, as if he were wishing he was anywhere but here.

      To alleviate his distress, Natalie decided to step in and take the lead, thereby preventing him from having to say anything that might get him in deeper than he could afford. “I like them, too,” she said. “Especially Michelangelo, but we don’t have any originals by him here, which is a real shame.”

      Jack lifted his shoulder and dropped it again in a gesture she supposed was meant to be a shrug. Somehow, though, it came off looking like strong-arming. “I like all of ’em,” he told her.

      Of course he did. Poor guy. He was still trying to make her think he was knowledgeable about the subject, clearly trying to preserve his male pride. Next he’d be telling her he didn’t know much about art, but he knew what he liked, since that was the cliché everyone uttered in a situation like this.

      “It’s kind of funny, really,” he said. “I know a lot about art, but I’m just not sure what I like.”

      Man. He couldn’t even get the clichés right.

      “Michelangelo is arguably the master of the masters,” he said. “I mean, I wouldn’t argue it, but some people might. Like you, he’s a favorite for a lot of people.”

      Natalie wondered just how deeply he was going to wade into this stuff, and prepared herself to throw him a line if that became necessary by tossing out a few other names to him. Raphael, perhaps, or, Titian, since she’d just been looking at that one herself.

      “Raphael, too,” he continued, making her think maybe he’d read his program a little better than she’d first suspected. “Even if he did borrow nearly all of the Big M’s repertory gestures and poses,” he continued, rattling Natalie just the tiniest bit. “He was still a better portraitist. Me, though, I’m more of a Titian kind of guy, I think. He was just so great at that whole opposing the virtuosity of pigments to the intellectual sophistication thing, you know? And the distinction between High Renaissance—all that formalized and classic balance of elements—and Late Renaissance—the more subjective, emotional stuff, not to mention all those bright colors—wasn’t as sharply divided in Venice as it was in the rest of Italy.” He nodded. “Yeah, I like the Venetians, I think. And Uccello. You don’t hear much about him, but you gotta admire the way he tried to jibe the Gothic and the Renaissance stuff. Plus, he had a really great beard. Piero della Francesca’s okay, too, but his portraits have kind of a pedantry without compassion, knowwuddamean?”

      Natalie blinked a few times, as if a too-bright flash had gone off right in her face. Wow. He really did know a lot about art. And he really didn’t know what he liked. She was intrigued.

      “I, um, I actually prefer the Flemish painters myself,” she said lamely.

      Jack swept a hand carelessly in front of himself. “Yeah, well, they were all profoundly influenced by the Italians, you know.”

      She did know. But not nearly as well as he did. “So,” she began again, “you come here often?”

      That something over her shoulder seemed to catch his eye again, because he suddenly glanced to the left and frowned. As Natalie began to turn around to see what was going on, Jack quickly shifted his body into that direction, taking a few steps forward, as if he wanted to block whatever she was attempting to see. Then he said, “This is my first visit to the museum. What else do you recommend I see?”

      So Natalie stopped turning. But it wasn’t his question that halted her. It was the way he extended his hand and curled his fingers around her upper arm and pulled her toward the right, as if he were trying to physically regain her attention, too. And boy, did he. Regain her attention, she meant. Physically, she meant. Because the minute his fingers curled around her arm, another shiver of electricity shimmied through her, right to her fingertips, and another wash of heat splashed through her belly with all the force of white-water rapids.

      Jack seemed to feel it, too, because he stopped looking over her shoulder and fixed his gaze on her face, and his eyes went wide in astonishment. Or maybe alarm. Or panic. Natalie couldn’t be sure, because she was too busy feeling all those things herself. And more. Desire. Need. Wanting. Hunger. Yes, she thought she could safely say now what it was like to hunger for something. Someone. Because that was how Jack Miller made her feel when he touched her the way he did.

      “I, ah…” she began eloquently.

      “Um, I…” he chorused at the same time.

      “Gotta go,” they both said as one.

      And, just like that, they turned around and sped off in opposite directions.

      And as she fled, all Natalie could think was that, for a mobster, he had a very gentle touch. Not to mention exceptionally good taste in art.

      JACK WAS KEEPING a close eye on his objective when he ran into Natalie in the art museum a second time. Or, rather, almost ran into her a second time. Fortunately, he saw her before she saw him, so he was able to duck behind a sculpture before any damage had been done.

      Damn. So much for staying out of her way.

      This was just great, he thought as he pressed his body against the cool stone statue. Now there were two people he had to keep an eye on in this crowd. What was bad was that he would have much rather kept his eye on Natalie than on his objective. What was worse was that his eye wasn’t the only body part he was thinking about when it came to keeping something on Natalie.

      But he was obligated, even honor bound, to make the man in the trench coat who was studying the Matisse his priority. Because he was the person Jack had been assigned to take care of—so to speak. Not that there was any real care in what Jack was supposed to do to the man in the trench coat who was studying the Matisse. But he did have a job to do—and there was sort of an art to that job, he reflected—and until he could complete that job, he had to stay focused on it. Even if it was a job he didn’t particularly relish completing. СКАЧАТЬ