Hot Rocks

and effort. He had to worry that they’d be caught pulling one of the pitiful scams Big Jack was so fond of, and end up confessing to the heist and losing half his property.
    They should be dead now. The fact that one of them continued to live, to breathe, to walk, to hide, was a personal insult. He never tolerated insults.
    His plan had been simple and clean. Myers first, execution style to make it seem as if one of his gambling debts had caught up with him. Then O’Hara and Young, bumbling idiots. They should have been where he’d told them to be, but they were too stupid to follow instructions.
    If they had, he’d have contacted them as he’d planned, planted seeds of worry over Myers’s demise and arranged for a meeting in a quiet, secluded location not unlike the one he was dining in now.
    There, he could have dealt with them both with little effort as neither had the stomach to so much as carry a weapon. He’d have left enough evidence to link them to the New York job, and set the scene to look, even to the most moronic cop, like a matter of thieves falling out.
    But they’d vanished on him. Scuttled his careful planning by attempting to go underground. Over a month now, it had taken over a month to finally pick up the trail and track Willy back to New York, only to miss him by inches and be forced to spend more time, more effort, more money to chase him to Maryland.
    Then lose him to a traffic accident.
    Shaking his head, Crew cut another bite of bloody steak. He’d never be able to collect directly from Willy now, so that account would be transferred to Big Jack—and the rest.
    How to do it was the question, and the possibilities entertained him through the rest of his meal.
    Did he go after the girl directly at this point, sweat her father’s location and the whereabouts of the gems out of her? But if Willy had died before giving her any salient information, that would be a wasted effort.
    Then there was this Maxfield Gannon to factor in. It might be wise to do a bit of research there, find out just what sort of man he was. One amenable to a bribe, perhaps? Obviously, he knew something about the girl or he wouldn’t have been sneaking into her shop.
    Or, and the thought struck him like an arrow in the heart, she had already cut a deal with Gannon. And that would be too bad, he thought, slapping his fist on the table again and again. That would be too bad for all involved.
    He wasn’t going to settle for half. It was not acceptable. Therefore, he would find a way to get back the rest of his property.
    The girl was the key. What she knew or didn’t know was undetermined. But there was one simple fact: She was Jack’s daughter, and the apple of his larcenous eye.
    She was bait.
    Considering this, he leaned back, tidily dabbed his mouth with his napkin. Really, the food was better here than one might think, and the quiet was soothing.
    Quiet. Private. A nice little woodland getaway. He began to smile as he indulged himself in another glass of wine. Quiet and private, with no neighbors nearby to disturb if one was to have a discussion with . . . associates. A discussion that might become a bit heated.
    He looked around the cabin, at the country dark pressing against the windows.
    It might do very well, he thought. It might do very well indeed.
     
     
     
    It was very odd waking up with a man in your bed. A man took up considerable room, for one thing, and she wasn’t used to worrying about how she looked the minute she opened her eyes in the morning.
    She supposed she’d get over the last part, if she continued to wake up with this man in her bed for any length of time. And she could always get a bigger bed to compensate for the first part.
    The question was, how did she feel about sharing her bed—and wasn’t that just a metaphor for her life?—with this man for any length of time? She hadn’t had time to think it through; hadn’t taken time, she corrected.
    Closing her eyes, she tried to imagine it was a month later. Her garden would be exploding, and she’d be thinking about summer clothes, about getting her outdoor furniture from the shed. Henry would be due for his annual vet appointment.
    She’d be planning Jenny’s baby shower.
    Laine opened one eye, squinted at Max.
    He was still there. His face was squashed into the pillow, his hair all cute and tousled.
    So, she felt pretty good about having him there a month from now.
    Try six months. She closed her eyes again and