Hidden Riches

think.”
    “You’d be smart to stay away from me right now.”
    “Yeah, I know.” She tucked her hand through his arm. “I like walking in the cold. Gets the blood moving. If we turn this way, we’ll end up in Chinatown. Some great little shops.”
    Jed deliberately turned the other way.
    “Mmm, perverse,” Dora commented. “You’re not really mad at him, you know.”
    “Don’t tell me what I am.” He tried to shake her off, but she hung on like a silk-covered burr. “Will you get lost, Conroy?”
    “Impossible. I know my way around this neighborhood too well.” She studied his profile, but resisted the urge to stroke the tension out of his jaw. “You can yell at me if you think it’ll make you feel better. It usually works when I’m mad at myself.”
    “Do I have to have you arrested for harassment?”
    She batted her lashes. “Do you think it would work, alittle thing like me molesting a big, tough guy like you?”
    He shot her one brief, nasty look. “At least you could shut up.”
    “I’d rather annoy you. You know, if you keep your jaw clenched like that, you’re going to break a tooth. Lea used to grind her teeth at night, and now she has to wear this plastic thing in her mouth whenever she goes to bed. It’s stress. Lea’s always been a worrier. Not me. When I sleep, I tune every thing out. I mean, that’s the point of sleep, isn’t it?”
    Before they could round the next corner, Jed stopped, turned toward her. “You’re not going to quit, are you?”
    “Nope. I can keep this up indefinitely.” Reaching down, she tugged up the zipper of his jacket, smoothed the collar. “He’s frustrated because he cares about you. It’s tough being cared about, because it loads all this responsibility on. You’ve had a potful of responsibility, I imagine. It must be a relief to toss it out for a while.”
    It was tough to hold on to temper with someone who understood so perfectly. But if he let go of temper, despair might creep in. “I had reasons for resigning. They still hold.”
    “Why don’t you tell me what they were?”
    “They’re my reasons.”
    “Okay. Want to hear my reasons for leaving the stage?”
    “No.”
    “Good, I’ll tell you.” She began to walk again, leading him back around the block to where he’d parked his car. “I liked acting. That’s hardly surprising with all those hammy genes swimming around in my blood. I was good, too. Once I graduated from the kid parts, I took on stuff like Our Town and The Glass Menagerie. The reviews were terrific. But . . .” She glanced up under her lashes. “Piqued your interest yet?”
    “No.”
    “But,” she continued, undaunted, “it wasn’t really what I wanted to do. Then, about five years ago, I got aninheritance, from my godmother. Anna Logan. Maybe you’ve heard of her? She made a big splash in B movies back in the thirties and forties, then went into agenting.”
    “I never heard of her.”
    “Well, she was loaded.” A car zoomed by, too fast, and sent up a breeze that fluttered Dora’s hair. It was still flying when she turned her head to smile up at Jed. “I was fond of her, too. But she was about a hundred years old and had had a hell of a life. Anyway, I took the money and a couple of courses in business management. Not that I needed them—the courses, I mean. Some things are innate.”
    “Is there a point to this, Conroy?”
    “I’m getting to it. When I told my family what I was going to do, they were upset. It really hurt them that I wasn’t going to use what they considered my gifts and carry on in the Conroy tradition. They loved me, but they wanted me to be something I couldn’t. I wouldn’t have been happy in the theater. I wanted my own shop, my own business. So even though it disappointed them, I went ahead and did what was right for me. It took a long time before I adjusted to the responsibility of being cared for, worried over and loved.”
    For a moment he said nothing. It surprised him that he wasn’t angry any longer. Sometime during her monologue his temper had dissipated, broken up like a nasty storm and blown away on the wind of Dora’s persistence.
    “So the moral of your incredibly long, convoluted story is that since I don’t want to be a cop, I shouldn’t get pissed because a friend wants to guilt me back onto the force.”
    With a sigh, Dora stepped in front of him, put her hands lightly on his shoulders. “No, Skimmerhorn, you missed it entirely.” Her