Hidden Riches

“No. I was a delinquent. Better watch your feet over here. I might have missed some splinters.”
    “Thanks.” Too wired to sit, Dora rose to replenish both snifters. “So what do you do now?”
    “You ought to know.” Jed took out a pack of cigarettes, lighted one. “I filled out an application.”
    “I didn’t have a chance to read it. Can I have one of those?” She nodded to his cigarette. “I like to smoke intimes of stress or great annoyance.”
    He passed her the one he’d already lighted and took out another. “Feeling better?”
    “I guess.” She took a quick drag, blew it out as quickly. She didn’t like the taste, only the effect. “You didn’t answer my question.”
    “What question?”
    “What do you do?”
    “Nothing.” He smiled, but there was nothing humorous about it. “I’m independently wealthy.”
    “Oh. I guess it pays to be a delinquent.” She took another pull on the cigarette. The smoke and the brandy were making her pleasantly dizzy. “So what do you do with yourself all day?”
    “Nothing much.”
    “I could keep you busy.”
    His brow lifted. “Is that so?”
    “Honest labor, Skimmerhorn. That is, if you’re any good with your hands.”
    “I’ve been told I’m good enough.” His fingers hovered at her back, over the zipper that had been pulled nearly to her waist. After a moment’s hesitation, he zipped it neatly into place. Dora jolted, blinked.
    “Ah . . . thanks. What I meant was, I need some new shelves in the storeroom. And this place always needs a little this or that.”
    “Your outside banister’s a joke.”
    “Oh.” Her lips moved into a pout, as though the insult had been personal. To Dora, it very nearly was. “Can you fix it?”
    “Probably.”
    “We could work it off the rent, or I could pay you by the hour.”
    “I’ll think about it.” He was thinking about something else at the moment—about how badly he wanted to touch her. Just a brush of his thumb along the curve of her throat. He couldn’t say why, but he wanted to do that, only that,and to see if the pulse at the base of that long, slender throat would throb in response.
    Annoyed with himself, Jed set aside his empty snifter and moved past her to pick up the trash can. “I’ll take this back for you.”
    “Thanks.” She had to swallow. It wasn’t as simple as it might have been, not with the obstruction in her throat. There was something about the way the man looked at her that sent all sorts of weird jangles through her system.
    Stupid, she told herself. It had simply been a long and exhausting day. She started toward the kitchen.
    “Really, thanks,” she said again. “If you hadn’t come in, I’d have spent an hour kicking things.”
    “That’s all right. I liked watching you kick him.”
    She smiled. “Why?”
    “I didn’t like his suit.” He stopped in the doorway to look down at her. “Pinstripes put me off.”
    “I’ll keep that in mind.” With the smile still curving her lips, she glanced up. Jed followed her gaze and studied the sprig of mistletoe over his head.
    “Cute,” he said, and because he was a man who’d decided to stop taking chances, started to move by her.
    “Hey.” Amused by the situation, and his reaction, Dora caught his arm. “Bad luck,” she told him. Hiking up to her toes, she brushed her mouth lightly over his. “I don’t like to risk bad luck.”
    He reacted instinctively, in much the same way he would have to a gunshot or a knife at the back. Thought came after action. He caught her chin in his hand to hold her still. “You’re risking more than bad luck, Isadora.”
    And he brought his mouth down on hers in a kiss tasting of smoke and brandy and an underlying violence that had the blood draining out of her head.
    Oh God, my God, was all she had a chance to think. Or perhaps she groaned it as her lips parted helplessly under his.
    It was quick, seconds only, but when he released her,she rocked back down on her heels, eyes wide.
    He stared down at her for another moment, cursing himself and fighting a vicious urge to do exactly what the idiot accountant had tried.
    “I wouldn’t try kicking me on the way out,” he said softly. “Lock your door, Conroy.”
    He walked out, across the hall, and locked his own.

CHAPTER
FIVE
    “W hat are you so cranky about?” Lea demanded. She’d popped back into the storeroom to announce a $500 sale, and had been greeted, for the third time that morning, by a short